The National Health Center (NVSC) calls on the Vilnius municipality to solve the problems of garbage transportation as soon as possible and warns that it may be necessary to declare an emergency.
The Ministry of Health (SAM) announces that after the reform of the waste system started in the capital on May 1st, NVSC received the most complaints from residents of Lazdynai, Karoliniškii and Fabijoniškii microdistricts. Inspections revealed that improperly handled waste poses a risk to human health.
Aleksandras Zubriakovas, adviser to the mayor of Vilnius, calls the accusations of the SAM politically motivated panic-mongering.
NVSC Vilnius department director Rolanda Lingienė emphasizes that the situation, which may have a negative impact on public health, cannot continue any longer.
"It should be noted that more than 500 residents live in the inspected houses and the domestic waste disposal disruption lasts longer than 24 hours. The situation is also complicated by warm weather", says R. Lingienė.
NVSC Vilnius Department applied to Vilnius city municipalities director of administration Povilas Poderskis, asking him to convene as soon as possible the commission for emergency health situations of the city of Vilnius, which should make "operational decisions on measures to eliminate household waste disposal disorders and their consequences".
"We believe that such reports are intended to cause panic in society, therefore we consider the behavior of the ministry as irresponsible and politically motivated." The situation with waste removal in the city of Vilnius is being resolved and managed. There are no prerequisites for an emergency situation in the capital and there will not be any," the mayor's advisor A. Zubriakovas said to BNS.
He says garbage collection schedules can be adjusted. Representatives of the Vilnius municipality promise to comment on the situation in more detail at the press conference.
At that time, R. Lingienė warns that household waste contains many dangerous infectious disease-causing microorganisms, which multiply rapidly in warm weather, and therefore "pose a direct risk to the health of the population both due to direct contact and can be carried and spread by various arthropods, rodents and of stray animals attracted by accumulated waste."
According to her, in order to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, it is necessary to immediately remove accumulated household waste, clean contaminated areas, disinfect container storage facilities, and garbage disposal pipelines.
"It seems that the situation is very bad and meets the criteria of an extreme event, or to be more precise, it is an event of biological origin that poses a risk to human health. A coordinated inter-institutional response is necessary to solve such an event," says Deputy Minister of Health Algirdas Šešelgis.
After the new system came into force, starting from May 1, Vilnius is divided into five parts: the northern, eastern and western zones are served by the company "Ecoservice", the central zone is served by "VSA Vilnius", the southern part is served by "Ekonovus". Since May, the Waste Management Service has stopped providing waste transportation services in Vilnius. After the changes in the areas served by the companies and waste transportation schedules, residents began to complain about garbage not being transported in some places for more than a week.
The crisis will be resolved "in the near future"
Minister of Health Aurelijus Veryga personally appealed to the Mayor of Vilnius Remigijius Šimašių on the Facebook social network, urging him to solve the problems more urgently.
The Director of Vilnius Administration, Povilas Poderskis, admitted at the council meeting on Wednesday that the citizens "faced difficulties" after the change in waste removal procedure, but promised that the problems will be solved in the near future.
"The whole situation is currently under control, it is being resolved, of course there are still residual phenomena that we are removing and will remove very soon," he said.
He admitted that after the change in waste transportation schedules, some residents were not properly informed about it, and in some places problems arose due to wrongly entered waste removal frequency numbers. However, the biggest problems, according to him, arose from the refusal of the services of the Waste Management Service, leaving three carriers out of four.
"The main challenges we are facing are the delay in the removal of waste in the city after the previous events, for example the Darom promotion, as well as many transporters leaving the areas, and especially one that is no longer there at all (…), that transporter started no more waste collection for a couple of weeks until May 1st, as a result of which a sufficiently large amount of waste has accumulated in certain areas. When the new carriers came, they saw the facts and had to deal with them as soon as possible," said P. Poderskis.
For some, the tax will decrease, for others it will increase
While presenting the changes in the waste system, Mr. Poderskis said that from May 1, residents in the capital will have to pay a fee to the municipal company "VASA", which in turn buys services from waste carriers. Residents of the first accounts will receive May 20.
According to him, from now on each container will be marked with special microchips. From now on, the fee for waste will consist of a constant and a variable part: the constant part will be calculated from the area of the house, and the variable part will be recalculated from the specific container weights next year.
The head of the administration assured that the preparation for the reform did not take place for a year or two, but since October 2017, 30, when the contracts with the waste carriers were signed. According to him, there are a lot of changes in the municipal waste system, which causes inconvenience.
He emphasized that for the majority of the population, waste transportation will be cheaper "not by a few percent, but by a few times", but for some the bills may increase.
"Of course, there will be subjects who will be angry, because they live in quite large areas. But there are quite a lot of entities that have not paid up to now, which is approximately 30 percent, provided for by the compensation procedure for pensioners. Vilnius residents - they start paying for waste removal from now on, which helps to make the overall system cheaper," he assured.
Residents claim that they have not received transporters for two weeks
Elena Mirinavičienė, head of the Infectious Diseases Management Department of the Vilnius Department of NVSC, told BNS that the majority of complaints were received from the residents of Lazdynai, Fabijoniškii, Karoliniškii, and Baltupii. After specialists checked the complaints this Tuesday, six problem areas were identified, and the checks will continue on Thursday - it is said that in some places waste has not been transported for two weeks.
"In some places you can see that it has just been taken out, we observed a lot of garbage trucks in Karoliniškės, Lazdynas at that time there was uncollected waste. Colleagues report that even now Baltupiai is not well, in Antakalni not good. Efforts are being made to improve that situation, but there is still a long way to go. Residents complain that waste has been standing in some places for a couple of weeks since April 26. The situation is improving, but it is not under control yet," E. Mirinavičienė told BNS.
According to her, the waste can contain a variety of pathogens, especially intestinal infectious diseases that fall with food waste and toilet paper.
"It is very important that the waste is not taken away, that it is not torn up, that rats, mice, cockroaches, flies, and birds cannot access it. Because vectors spread other diseases, people carry diseases into their apartments, both on their feet and on their hands. A cycle of nature is starting, which is very dangerous," she emphasized.
Author: Ignas Jačauskas
