The issue of a waste dump on the site of the "Ołdrzychów" mine was discussed by officials in June 2025. In a column published on social media on 11 September 2025, Leszek Socha questioned whether the decision to organize a waste dump at the "Ołdrzychów" clay mine near Nowogrodziec was really a good investment for the municipality.
“There are topics that bother me,” said Leszek Socha in his column. “This concerns the planned location of a waste dump, or a dump for other waste, on former mining land. According to, I think, the interested parties themselves, this is former mining land. I do not know the geological studies and I do not know whether this mine has already been exhausted or not. Perhaps extracting clay is simply no longer profitable and the owners would rather organize a waste dump there. Waste dumps are a sensitive issue. Whoever has the waste has the millions. The current mayor is pushing through everything her predecessor planned. Something is behind this. Storing waste in a place where oversight is very difficult, because fences will soon be put up there and nobody will know what is coming in or going out, could end with the waste collected there, for example, contaminating our groundwater. If there is such a struggle over this post-excavation dump, it raises my concerns,” Socha added in the column of 11 September.
Five days later, on 16 September, the official municipal office website published an announcement about an information meeting, initiated by Mayor Joanna Świder “in response to further questions and concerns from residents regarding the operation of the mine in Ołdrzychów”.
At the meeting, the mine’s director spoke, while Joanna Świder, who led the meeting, spoke in strong terms about concerns regarding the waste dump, expressed, among others, by Leszek Socha in his column.
“The topic [of the waste dump – editor’s note] is sensational, entirely untrue, and apparently intended to frighten the public into believing that, as mayor, I intend to do something illegal that will affect us personally,” Joanna Świder said at the meeting.
Karol Stasik, a co-owner of the "Ołdrzychów" mine, also visited Leszek Socha regarding the column and the doubts it contained.
“Mr. Stasik suggested that they had considered referring my statement [of 11 September – editor’s note] to the prosecutor’s office. It was said as a joke, although it depends on who likes what kind of jokes,” Leszek Socha reported about his meeting with Stasik. “Karol Stasik also said that apparently post-production waste from Bolesławiec ceramics would be stored there, and that would satisfy me. However, we know how things are. We know that officials in Poland are not responsible for anything, so trust in their declarations is limited. I do not know where this irritation and action came from, because such matters should be clarified at the stage of draft resolutions, and councillors cannot have doubts about this. Society is concerned because declarations by an official are one thing and reality is another. We only want hazardous waste not to be brought to this excavation. We need to take precautions for such a possibility. Nobody here is accusing anyone of anything. There should be an appropriate provision that reassures residents and protects residents,” Socha added.
At the information meeting, the mine’s representative offered reassurance.
“There is no permission on our part for anyone to dump any hazardous waste at our site,” said Przemysła Stasik, a representative of the mine’s management board. “In general, we have permission to store waste from ceramic plants: shards, plaster molds—in other words, materials that are waste from the production of Zakłady Ceramiczne "Bolesławiec"—and that is the only thing brought to and stored at the mine. Nothing more,” Stasik said.
In a conversation with the editorial team, Leszek Socha added that he did not understand why his commitment to the municipality’s well-being and respect for the rule of law had met with such a sharp and hostile reaction from the municipal office. He also stressed that when recording the column, he had no idea which mine was involved, and it was not significant to him. His concern was the well-being of the municipality, and that is the only thing that matters to him.