Up to a third of Slovenian caves polluted

Slovenia has a rich underground world with caves large and small dotting the country. They have attracted cavers, visitors and researchers from near and afar for centuries, but also people who used them as a handy way to dump their waste. As a result, 20-30% of Slovenian caves are now thought to be polluted and cleaning them is a major challenge.

Caver and researcher Jure Tičar has often come across waste at the entrances to pit caves, which led him to consider the causes, process and extent of cave pollution in Slovenia. When as the head of service for cave protection at the...