About the Western Board used to be a Polish enclave within the Free city of Danzig – today “black clouds”. And the stink. A visit to the site.
“Danziger Chernobyl” call the inhabitants of their district Nowy port. Quite different is the Image of the district was to the Communist era, as the Gdansk night life here at home. A place for small-scale smugglers, send prostitutes and sailors with dollars in the pockets. As the free market economy held from the 1990s to enter, went to the Boom to an end. With the decline of the stench came from.
Although the port has for years waste was disposed of here, the burden together with the fumes from the nearby chemical industry, the air, however, the current smell is not only unbearable, but also fairly new. Residents can see the reason for the Blum Beteiligungs GmbH, a German company, which operates a special waste incineration plant Port Service.
Residents go to the barricades
Local residents and Port Service links, in the meantime, a long dispute. It is what is emitted from the chimneys of the company’s stones in the sky over Nowy port out.
“This is no small bags be burnt, you understand? This is an incineration plant for hazardous waste”, stressed syllable for syllable, Mr Dominik, who prefers to be called by his real name. “Expired medication, dead animals and organic waste from hospitals,” to the man.
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Danzig: residents complain of stench
The residents are now a true stink-experts. On the Internet, you can share your experiences in dealing with headaches and nausea. The Journalist Przemyslaw Kozlowski know much about the incinerator: “they told incredible stories. The residents connected with detergent soaked sheets in the window, or ready to hold gas masks.”
“Depending on the color of the smoke, you can see that in Danzig of any official Delegation is. The Stoves are then switched off and after they left the city again, spitting out of the chimney again, black Smoke,” says Lukasz Hamadyk, local politicians, and a city Deputy who observed from his apartment day in and day out the chimney.
The beginnings of Port Service in Poland
It is persistently claimed that the idea for this business from the former Boxing world champion Dariusz Michalczewski – a German with Polish roots – and thanks to all the brothers Blum approach. Since 2003, two giant boilers and a chimney that dominate the landscape on the Western plate. Fires and the like champagne corks exploding barrels with chemicals, this includes, say several witnesses.
But the last straw that brought something Else: in 2012, Port Service took 15,000 tons of earth from the Ukraine, the pesticides and carcinogenic Hexachlorobenzene (HCB), which can damage the liver and the immune system, was contaminated. The company outsourced the contaminated soil in approximately 13,000 partial leaking bags.
Przemyslaw Kozlowski: Some residents hold gas masks ready
Port Service was threatened with an exorbitant fine of two million euros. It’s the end of the company would have been in Gdansk. But it was only imposed a symbolic fine. The justification: waste not permanently, but-according to the decision, only “short-term” storage. Port Service cashed in on this business about seven million euros. The image loss was considerable.
2015 complained to the then mayor Adamowicz again at the Prosecutor’s office because of the smell. Unsuccessful: In Poland there are no regulations against air pollution in Western Europe has long been the Standard.
In Poland, the villains, and in Germany the “Eco-angels”
Even if the gdańsk associate the name of Blum with anything Good, the brothers Blum in Germany as an “Eco-angels”. About the company German-Oekotec GmbH & co. KG is one of Guido Blum., the cleaning means on the Basis of minerals and biodegradable materials making. The brothers are also involved in charity for children with cancer. In 2013, it funded a March of activists Steve McCormick from the children’s hospice in Syke to the oncological children’s hospice in gdańsk.
The slogan of the company “For a new, clean future” sounds for Joanna Harper, who lives in Germany and in Gdansk Nowy port, as a mockery. Almost every night you will awake at 3 a.m. because of the unbearable stench.
Despite the many scandals and Affairs Port Service is presented as “environmental Messiah” of the city. “It is all thanks to us, that about 20,000 tons of medical and other waste is annually disposed of,” writes in response to a query, the spokesperson of the company, Alicja Nadarzyńska. The plants, which are the local residents a thorn in the eye, referred to the company as “a technology system for the protection of the environment”.
Gdansk is a modern city that its Position in the industry owe, which develop in the vicinity of the port and continues to be. The development of the companies operating in the fields of chemical, petroleum, and metal processing and shipbuilding, and the manufacture of medicines, meant a great opportunity for the city, you will hear from representatives of the company.
“It can be anything, but not on the West panel and not at the expense of health and life,” replied the local politicians Lukasz Hamadyk. He believes neither the protestations of the company, nor the investigations by the Environmental protection Agency, which can find no acute environmental pollution.
“The greatest activity of the chimney at the weekend and in the evening, the authorities developed”, he said and pleaded at the same time, for the preparation of a study to document the increase in cases of cancer.
Joanna Harper complains that she’s up all night to 3 of the stench is awake
The future of Port Service
The lease for the premises ends in the year 2024, and the City leaders have given the inhabitants a desire not to extend. The inhabitants argue for an immediate dissolution of the lease contract. On the question of how high a penalty might be, got the DW no response from the authorities.
“But Port Service wants to commit itself to any comparison,” said city Council Deputy Beata Dunajewska. “Then the costs could explode to up to two million euros.” The city could not cope with it. Unless the government step in would.
With a special the Polish government has obtained leave that the historical site of the West passes the plate under the administrative jurisdiction of the government. On the grounds is a modern Museum is to be built. Also a Ferris wheel modeled after the London Eye is in the conversation.
“A roller-coaster with the foul glow of the Port Service? Great,” says Mr. Dominik ironic. Currently, the brothers Blum in Poland invest merrily. Their latest investment: Bes-Blum Environmental Services. This is a good thing, so the Port Service.