Radioactive waste in the Balkans: From Vinča and Krško to Trgovska Gora

Trgovska Gora is supposed to be the site of the waste disposal site from the Krško nuclear power plant, which is shared by Slovenia and Croatia.

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Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

09.02.2026. 14:42h

Although his country does not have a nuclear power plant, Mario Crnković from Novi Grad, in the very northwest of Bosnia and Herzegovina, fears that radioactive waste could end up in his backyard and change his life.

Crnković's home in a small town on the Una River is two or three kilometers as the crow flies from Trgovska Gora, an area on the other bank of the river that belongs to Croatia, he tells the BBC in Serbian.

Waste from the Krško nuclear power plant, shared by Slovenia and Croatia, should be disposed of there, as well as other radioactive waste from Croatian industry and healthcare institutions. announced by the Croatian Parliament after the adoption of the Law on the Construction of the Radioactive Waste Management Center.

This is opposed by 38-year-old activist Mario and his Green Team Association.

"We are fighting for the right to life in northwestern BiH."

"This would be a precedent, because we have a case where nuclear waste from a third country (Slovenia, where the Krško power plant is located) will be disposed of on the border with another country, in an extremely non-transparent manner," claims Crnković.

Mario is not alone, as 250.000 to 300.000 people could be at risk if the landfill project goes ahead, experts have estimated. Legal and expert team of BiH for Trgovska Gora.

Most of them live on the Bosnian side of the Una, they add.

But the Croatian Fund for Financing the Decommissioning and Disposal of Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel of the Krško Nuclear Power Plant told the BBC that Croatia, as a "sovereign state", is building a waste storage facility "on its territory in accordance with all professional rules and legal regulations".

"The construction of the warehouse, as well as its supervision, must be carried out in a way that does not have any impact on the population or the environment."

"The fear stems from the large amount of misinformation and untruths being placed in the public," they state in a written response.

Krško was until now the only nuclear power plant in the countries of the former Yugoslavia.

Forwards Serbian officials have been talking increasingly loudly for months about plans to build their own, what are they about also spoke with officials from the Russian Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom).

Serbia, during the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron to Belgrade in 2024, signed agreements with France in the field of nuclear energy and critical mineral raw materials.

All of this raises new questions about the disposal of radioactive waste in the Balkans, which, in addition to nuclear power plants, is also generated in hospitals, during medical research, and in industrial production.

How did the landfill project cause a conflict between Croatia and Bosnia?

Croatia plans to build its own storage and landfill on Trgovska Gora, in the municipality of Dvor u Bani, in southeastern Croatia.

In that country, even before the breakup of Yugoslavia and the war in the first half of the 1990s, a waste landfill was planned, four locations were considered, and in 1999, Trgovska Gora was chosen.

Almost three decades later, the Croatian parliament took a step towards realizing that project, which should be implemented in Čerkezovac on Trgovska gora.

It was "a purely political decision, as no relevant criteria or procedures were taken into account" when selecting the site, Edin Delić, a professor at the Faculty of Mining, Geology and Civil Engineering in Tuzla and a member of the BiH Expert Team for the Protection of Trgovska Gora, told the BBC.

"The first question is whether there will be a storage or landfill on Trgovska Gora, because no one knows at the moment, and the story of a landfill for more complex materials, and perhaps even radioactive materials from the Krško power plant, is quietly and slowly beginning."

"I wouldn't rule out nuclear fuel either," warns Delić, who is also the mayor of the Lukavac Municipality in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The project does not involve the construction of a landfill, but rather "a storage facility where the waste will be stored for about 30 years, after which it will be moved to a landfill for which Croatia has yet to determine a location," the Croatian Fund managing the construction said.

The decision to make Trgovska Gora the site for the storage facility was made based on "the elimination criteria of the International Atomic Energy Agency," although all four locations originally considered "met the necessary conditions," they added.

Prema information from the website of the Croatian Radioactive Waste Management Center, a storage facility for institutional radioactive waste from medicine, science and industry is planned, as well as a long-term storage facility for low and intermediate radioactive waste from the Krško power plant.

They claim that spent nuclear fuel from the power plant will not be stored there.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković also assures that "expert assessments" have shown that "all of this is completely harmless to people."

"If it were dangerous, we wouldn't be doing it." he added.

But Delić states that BiH did not receive precise data on this, and that the project was voted on in the Croatian parliament without an environmental impact study.

The construction of such a facility is also controversial due to its proximity to the BiH border, which could be affected by "at least two-thirds of the impact of that facility," the expert claims.

"The site is on a slope towards the Una River and all surface and groundwater, as well as the wind rose in the area, are directed towards the river."

"Novi Grad in Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost twice as close to that location as the municipality of Dvor in Croatia," Delić argues.

The "shortest line" from that place to the Una River is less than a kilometer, and that is where the sources of drinking water for Novi Grad and the surrounding area are located, he adds.

There is also criticism coming from BiH because the cross-border population was not formally included in public discussions about the project, nor was a cross-border environmental impact assessment of the project submitted.

But the competent Fund claims that the impact assessment will be completed in the first quarter of 2026, after which the documentation will be forwarded to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In October, former military facilities at Čerkezovac were removed, but it was not necessary to submit such documents for that activity, they added.

However, "the decision to build the Center can only be made after the completion of the environmental impact assessment procedure, and only if it is shown that the project is acceptable," the Fund concludes.

Although Republika Srpska is located near Trgovska Gora, this case is one of the rare ones in which both entities of BiH are on the same side.

Criticism is also coming from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the country's other entity, from which Professor Delić also comes.

Experts from both entities are in the expert team.

"The Trgovska Gora case united Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was divided on every possible basis," believes activist Mario Crnković.

"People from all over the country came to Novi Grad at their own expense to express their opposition to the arrival of waste on Trgovska Gora," he adds.

The expert team filed a complaint with the Expo Convention Committee in Geneva., and they also announced the possibility of filing a lawsuit against Croatia.

Edin Delić believes that the consequences of such a facility could affect "next generations."

"We also have secondary or tertiary impacts: for example, who will buy honey from Banija if a nuclear waste dump is built there? Would you give that to a child to eat?" the professor asks.

These questions are the most worrying for Dragoljub Arbutina, a 60-year-old beekeeper from the village of Bansko Vrpolje in the Dvor municipality.

His house is about 10 kilometers from the old barracks in Čerkezovac, where construction is planned.

Although he immediately says he is "not an expert" to assess how it could affect his end, "he is against everything that is not natural, including waste," he tells the BBC in Serbian.

"The very word nuclear waste immediately reminds me of the Chernobyl accident - that's what I immediately think of," he adds.

Dragoljub visited that power plant in Slovenia, as well as another one in Nitra, Slovakia, through the Croatian Fund.

As he says, he could see there that "people were living normally and that agricultural crops were normal."

But he fears that, even if that happens in Dvor, people from other regions of Croatia and abroad will be distrustful of his honey.

"If I sell honey, for example, in Istria, when one day that waste comes to Dvor, people will say 'there's nuclear waste there and maybe that honey is poisoned'."

"I fear that agricultural producers from this area will lose sales because of this psychological barrier."

They also fear that all of this could further lower the price of properties and houses in their area.

How dangerous is radioactive waste?

The negative impact of radioactive waste on nature and people can primarily occur due to incidents or omissions during which it ends up in nature, the website states. Pollution Sustainability Directorate.

Once it enters the air, water or soil, it can spread through the food chain or directly negatively affect humans, it added.

Direct exposure can cause immediate symptoms and acute radiation sickness, and in the long term, several types of cancer, while the impact on subsequent generations is reflected in genetic mutations and possible deformities in newborns.

These are the main reasons why such waste is carefully managed, as it "minimizes the potential for harm," says Professor Catherine Morris from the University of Manchester.

"This means that it is packaged and stored in large, fortified and secured facilities, so that the risk to the environment and public health is completely reduced or eliminated."

"Even bulky packaging is taken into account so that transport, as well as possible accidents, can take place without the spread of these substances," the scientist adds to BBC Serbian.

How is radioactive waste managed?

Unlike other types of waste, radioactive waste disposal requires a longer-term process with strict safety measures and long-term planning.

The management method depends on "the strength of the radiation source and the half-life and decay times" of these substances, Jagoš Raičević, former director of the Public Enterprise Nuclear Facilities of Serbia, tells BBC Serbian.

"There is also a difference between waste and sources, which include used lightning rods - they are treated as waste since they are no longer in use, but they are handled in a special way and therefore there is a special facility for them," emphasizes the expert, who previously worked for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Based on the strength of the radiation source, waste is divided into low, medium and high radioactive waste.

This division also dictates whether waste is stored or disposed of.

Storage involves keeping waste under constant supervision for a certain period of time, usually from 10 to 100 years, and disposal - placing waste in a facility, without the intention of removing it in the future, according to the document. website of the Croatian Center for Radioactive Waste Management.

Low-level radioactive waste, which predominantly originates from medicine and industry, is generally disposed of immediately in "functional, purpose-built facilities" without prior storage, says Professor Morris.

"Interim storage is mandatory for intermediate and high-level radioactive waste due to thermal cooling, which most often takes place in specially designed pools before further work in these facilities becomes possible, which usually takes several decades," adds the director of the University of Manchester's Nuclear Waste Service.

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The level of activity is in line with the risk that waste poses to the environment and human health.

Low-level waste carries a lower risk and is "routinely disposed of at actively operating nuclear facilities," Morris notes.

"High- and intermediate-level radioactive waste has higher radiotoxicity and requires international approval for its long-term disposal in special underground repositories," adds the British scientist.

The depth at which waste is disposed of is often in line with the level of radioactivity.

"The greater the activity of the waste, the deeper it is deposited."

"Low-level radioactive waste can be disposed of on the surface, while high-level radioactive waste, which mainly includes spent nuclear fuel, goes to a depth of several hundred meters to as much as two kilometers underground," explains Jagoš Raičević.

It stays there "for a very long time", and is deposited below the depths where groundwater flows, adds the Serbian expert.

Learn more about global nuclear powers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MzvYOaTil8

Where does the Balkans store radioactive waste?

In Krško, a town in southeastern Slovenia on the Sava River, a nuclear power plant began operating in 1983 and today it provides a third of Slovenia's and a fifth of Croatia's electricity needs.

Slovenia disposes of spent nuclear fuel at the power plant itself, while low and medium-level radioactive waste is stored in the Brinje storage facility near the capital Ljubljana.

During 2024, construction of a new landfill began in the settlement of Vrbina, near Krško.

It should meet Slovenia's needs for the next 100 years and is planned to be completed in 2027, according to the Slovenian Ministry of Energy. Radioactive Waste Management Agencies (RAWMA).

Unlike Slovenia, there is no facility for the disposal of radioactive waste on the territory of Serbia, but only a few for storage, said the Public Enterprise Nuclear Facilities of Serbia in a written response to the BBC in Serbian.

The company was founded in 2009, when it was separated from the Institute for Nuclear Sciences "Vinča", and since then it has been responsible for managing all nuclear facilities in the country, which are located in Vinča, a settlement ten kilometers from Belgrade.

Among them are two old hangars and a "radium bunker" from the Yugoslav period and "a legacy of the former Yugoslavia's previous nuclear programs."

They were closed in 2012 and no new radioactive waste is being accepted, the company says.

Then, a third hangar and a "secure storage facility" were built, where radioactive waste, mainly from medicine and industry, as well as used ionizing sources, which primarily consist of old, replaced lightning rods, are now stored, they add.

The new facilities are designed to receive institutional waste for a period of 40 years and less than 10 percent of capacity is filled.

There are also four underground tanks for storing liquid waste, they added.

In 2019, Serbia adopted a new Law on Radiation and Nuclear Safety and Security, which foresees the conditions under which the country could obtain facilities for the disposal of such waste in the future.

"It is expected that as part of the plans for introducing nuclear energy in Serbia, the issue of choosing a location for radioactive waste disposal will also be raised."

The law also provides for the development of a Strategy for the Management of Spent Fuel and Radioactive Waste, which will be adopted by the government for a period of seven years.

Other former Yugoslav republics also have storage facilities, primarily for low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste from medicine and industry.

In Montenegro is located in the capital city of Podgorica, while before 2006 and the independence of that country, it was stored in Vinča.

In North Macedonia, it is stored in Petrovec, near Skopje.

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Can we get rid of waste forever?

If that is ever possible, that day is not near, although the periods for disposing of radioactive waste depend on its type.

For particles with a half-life of 30 years, it is necessary to dispose of the waste in a regulated and safe manner for 300 years in order to reach a level of 0,01 percent of the original radioactivity, says Professor Morris.

He also emphasizes that there are particles whose half-life lasts more than 24.000 years, so in their case a delay of 240.000 years is necessary for the same effect.

"Disposal of nuclear waste in the natural environment, that is, without any special facilities, has not been considered so far, because even short-lived radionuclides require several centuries for radioactive decay."

"If we go back 300 years, we haven't even had the industrial revolution yet and we're talking about 10 or 12 human generations," the scientist from England explains vividly.

Mario Crnković and his neighbors from Novi Grad, who could soon get a radioactive waste disposal facility on the other bank of the Una River, don't have that much time.

Just because of the announcement of the construction, they have already begun to feel negative "demographic, economic, social and other consequences," he says.

"Implementing the project would only multiply them," 38-year-old Mario is convinced.

Watch a video of the water release from the nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan

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