Special Investigation Service declines probes into Vilnius waste crisis

Lithuania’s Special Investigation Service has declined to open criminal investigations into actions by the Vilnius municipal authorities and the Vilnius County Waste Management Center during the region’s waste crisis, LRT reported, citing BNS.

The Elektrėnai municipality had asked the Prosecutor General’s Office to assess whether the center’s decision to transport mixed municipal waste from the region to the Kazokiškės landfill was lawful and what consequences it could have. The Special Investigation Service decided on July 27 not to open a pre-trial investigation.

The service said it had found no objective evidence that civil servants or equivalent officials had abused their positions or exceeded their powers. A prosecutor confirmed the decision as lawful and justified on August 2, it told BNS.

Elektrėnai municipality had opposed an order by the waste management center and the head of emergency operations in the capital to send waste from all carriers in the Vilnius region to Kazokiškės from July 14. The center temporarily suspended the transport of unsorted waste to the landfill on July 15.

On August 13, the Special Investigation Service also decided not to investigate decisions that restructured the Vilnius region’s municipal waste management system. Opposition members of the Vilnius city council had asked prosecutors to assess whether officials exceeded their powers, abused their positions or harmed the public interest. The legality and justification of that decision are currently being assessed by the prosecution, the service said.

After a court ordered Energesman, the operator of the Vilnius waste sorting plant, not to obstruct the waste management center’s operations at the facility, the center took over its operation at the end of July. It agreed with waste management companies Ecoservice, Ekonovus and Ekobaze to sort all of the region’s waste and is handling tens of thousands of tonnes of accumulated waste at the plant.

Elektrėnai municipality declared an emergency in late March over pollution at the Kazokiškės landfill. The municipal council called for the landfill’s operating permit to be revoked and proposed finding a new location. Authorities decided to cover 14,000 tonnes of partially combustible waste brought to the landfill from the waste sorting plant, which caught fire last year.

The waste crisis in the Vilnius region began after the fire at the plant, whose operations have not yet been restored.