On Thursday, 7 January, the emergency services were dispatched to a potentially dangerous discovery. Numerous 250-litre barrels and 1,000-litre containers were found on Kościuszki Street.
Both the barrels and the containers held hydrocarbon derivatives: adhesives, paints and varnishes—according to an expert, hazardous waste, and in enormous quantities. (Well over 100 cubic metres; this amount would fill six TIR trailers.)
The property owner, a Bolesławiec resident, was detained. On Friday, 8 January, he was charged with storing “waste or substances in conditions or in a manner that may endanger human life or health, or cause a deterioration in the quality of water, air or the surface of the land, or destruction in the plant or animal world.” The man may now face a sentence of between three months and as much as five years in prison. Moreover, the prosecutor’s office imposed a ban on leaving the country.
The District Prosecutor’s Office and the Bolesławiec City Office are conducting proceedings in the case. The former is investigating where the hazardous chemicals came from. (At this point, nothing indicates that they were waste from abroad.)