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 Zgodbe

There are at least 74 unreported car dumps in Slovenia

We found that most dumps are located on land owned by private individuals, while just under 20 percent are on land owned by municipalities, the state, or state-owned companies.

It often happens that private owners do not remove the vehicles despite warnings, inspection proceedings, and fines.

A case from Tolmin reveals a company that advertises and provides vehicle dismantling services despite lacking an environmental permit. It operates in cooperation with the municipality and even receives business subsidies for its work. The company’s director ran in the 2004 parliamentary elections as a representative of the Party of Ecological Movements of Slovenia, which advocated addressing environmental issues.

In Cerklje na Gorenjskem, we identified an unreported dump located in the immediate vicinity of a protocol facility of the Republic of Slovenia, Strmol Castle. The site contains nearly 100 vehicles and extends across two privately owned parcels.

During our investigation of car dumps on private land, we also came across a bizarre case: in the municipality of Litija, there is even a decommissioned passenger airplane.

A third of illegal car dumps remain despite inspectorate measures

Dozens of unreported car dumps uncovered in the Cartomb investigation were presented to the environmental inspectorate. Their responses show that they were already aware of most of the locations. Despite the inspectorate’s good level of information, monitoring and sanctioning systems are ineffective and slow, while inadequate legislation allows loopholes and abuse.

We also identified 11 dumps in the immediate vicinity of water sources, such as the Ljubljanica and the Soča rivers. Dumps near water sources are particularly dangerous for nature and human health. One liter of waste motor oil can contaminate one million liters of water, explained Nataša Mikulin, director of Jung, a company licensed for vehicle dismantling.

The owner of an unreported car dump invests in real estate in Croatia

The company Daras in the Gorenjska region collects and dismantles cars and sells automotive parts without an environmental permit. The same parts are also sold in Croatia, where the owner of Daras operates another company. That company owns two villas in Vodnjan, and a member of its management board is the son of former Slovene prime minister Janez Rop.

How the map of unreported end-of-life vehicle dumps was created

We identified and analyzed more than 50 media reports on unreported car dumps and gathered tips from readers as well as from the Ecologists without borders registry of illegal dumping sites.

We then spent months searching the web and publicly available satellite imagery in Google Earth Pro and Google Maps Street View and even attempted to develop an artificial intelligence tool to help verify locations.

Finally, we spent several days conducting fieldwork at sites across Slovenia, from Murska Sobota to Koper and from Bohinjska Bistrica to Krško.

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