The Jelenia Góra Regional Prosecutor’s Office has filed an indictment with the District Court in Zgorzelec against Elżbieta T. Investigators accused T. of handling waste unlawfully as the person responsible for waste management at a production facility in Bogatynia, creating a threat to the environment and human health and leading to a fire.

The charges cover the period from December 2013 to June 2015, when the defendant was a commercial proxy of Revita Bio, a company based in Warsaw that managed the waste landfill in Bogatynia. At that time, contrary to the provisions of the Waste Act and the terms of administrative decisions, she brought in and stored waste unsorted at the facility’s storage yard in Bogatynia. The waste was stored in a manner that failed to protect the area from leachate entering the soil and groundwater, being blown away and mixed, self-ignition, or arson.

This resulted in contamination that could have endangered human health and significantly reduced the quality of groundwater.

Moreover, on June 7, 2015, as a result of the waste-handling practices described above, T. caused an incident in the form of a fire that threatened property on a large scale as well as the lives and health of many people. The aforementioned irregularities also repeatedly created a direct fire hazard in 2015.

The defendant was additionally accused of causing six shipments of waste from Germany, with a total weight of 115,620 tons, originating from the shredding of vehicles, to be imported from February to June 2015, contrary to the provisions of the Act on the International Movement of Waste and without prior written notification or obtaining a permit. Most of the waste was placed in the yard in Bogatynia; some was stored in Rusko. (This offense carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.)

Among other things, an expert opinion on environmental protection was obtained in the case, confirming the irregularities described above.

It was established that the company on whose behalf the defendant acted was supposed to process the imported waste, but in reality it limited itself to merely collecting it, and the waste-processing installation was never commissioned. Moreover, the installation’s processing capacity was several times lower than the amount of waste.

From March to December 2015, a direct fire hazard occurred ten times at the facility in Bogatynia, in the form of fires burning at the landfill. As determined by a fire-safety expert, given the quantity and characteristics of the combustible material, only firefighting operations prevented it from spreading.

The incident of June 7, 2015, however, was a fire in the strict sense: flames spread with intense force, threatening property on a large scale and—potentially—people who might have been within the zone affected by airborne products of thermal decomposition.

The direct cause of most of these incidents was deliberate human action—arson. In some cases, biological self-ignition may have occurred. In the case of the fire on June 7, 2015, the probable cause was determined to be physical phenomena occurring in the electrical installation.

There was a deliberate violation at the landfill of fire-safety regulations and regulations concerning the storage of waste, including the type of waste and the manner in which it was stored.

The suspect did not admit to committing the acts of which she was accused. She had no previous criminal convictions.