Bor: Serbia’s Pollution Crisis in Pictures

According to Bor's city assembly and the director of Zijin, the new complex at Novo Cerovo will meet the highest environmental standards.

The Chinese company says it has invested $142 million in "improving the state of the environment and ecology, instead of $70 million as agreed in the agreement on strategic cooperation", that it is currently disposing of waste from its previous operations and planting trees. It claims to have neutralised many tons of waste and made more than a thousand acres of land green.

After visiting the site, the Serbian Ministry of Mining and Energy declared that the company had fulfilled all necessary requirements by mechanically treating its wastewater and cleaning the Pek River. The inspectors did, however, order Zijin to build additional channels and wastewater treatment pools to prevent pollution, which both Zijin and the Ministry of Mining and Energy told BIRN had been completed.

Despite this, environmental organisations and many citizens of Bor are doubtful of any significant improvement in the city's environment, already one of the most polluted in Serbia. There have been several protests over pollution during the last two years, amid complaints that the water in the area's main river has turned a reddish colour and started to smell.

The wider area of Bor, a town in eastern Serbia. Photo:Nemanja Pacic/Just Finance.

The Centre for Ecology and Sustainable Development, CEKOR, and the Renewables and Environmental Regulatory Institute, RERI, which have been following the issue separately, both question the legality of the Chinese project in Bor.

These Serbian environmental organisations both say the government failed to announce public tenders as required by law or to conduct the necessary...