The mayor of Buzet warned about the responsibility of local politicians for waste in Gospić and Pazin, and emphasized that Buzet leads in separate collection with over 60 percent.
At a press conference on Wednesday, August 19, 2026, the mayor of Buzet, Damir Kajin, stated that the biggest problem in Istria are "eco thugs," i.e., individuals who dump waste wherever they please. He emphasized that the City of Buzet has the right to speak about waste because, according to official data from the year before last, it records a separate collection rate of 60.2 percent, while the Istria County average is 37 percent. Data for last year have not yet been submitted, but Kajin claims they are already far above that figure.
Kajin commented on the cases of Gospić and Pazin, where waste ended up without the necessary permits. In Pazin, hazardous waste was stored a hundred meters from the DORH, the commercial court, the misdemeanor court, the County headquarters, the City, the health center, kindergartens, emergency services, and the library, and no one can say they didn't know. "In the case of Gospić and Pazin, the problem is irresponsible local politicians. No one issued a permit for hazardous waste, yet it ended up there," said Kajin.
Buzet, he stressed, avoided a similar fate thanks to a referendum in May 2015, when citizens rejected a composting facility that was supposed to collect chicken manure from half of Europe. He claims they had the most problems with the then Minister Anka Mrak-Taritaš and Minister Mihael Zmajlović. "For them, everything was clean, and had Mamić not fallen, the composting facility would have happened in Buzet because of them," he said. He added that no truck carrying that waste passed through Buzet because Slovenian customs officers at the Sočerga border crossing prevent trucks heavier than 7.5 tons from crossing.
Speaking about the asbestos disposal procedure, Kajin described how the application is submitted through the ministry's e-ONTO application, where location data is entered, and a accompanying document is created, which is certified by the city, the transporter, and the disposal facility. When it was determined that the roof of the Sports Hall in Buzet, built in the 1970s, was covered with asbestos, Buzet immediately proceeded with remediation, which cost 160,000 euros, and the asbestos was disposed of in Križevci.
"In Buzet, no one thought of throwing asbestos into some pit. I am convinced that no one involved with hazardous waste in Gospić or Pazin followed that procedure," he said. He pointed out that the waste remediation in Pazin will cost the state 8.1 million euros, while the current necessary costs for Kaštijun are estimated at 13 to 14 million euros. Kaštijun, he believes, is the biggest test for Istria's local self-government and a problem the government will not solve.
Kajin also warned about the broader context: Croatia annually exports 100,000 tons of municipal and 50,000 tons of hazardous waste, and imports roughly the same amount, but without order and supervision. Croatia is the only EU country, along with Malta, that does not have an incinerator. It had one until Pluto self-ignited or someone set it on fire, and Tomašević does not allow a new one to be built. The central question, in his view, is not whether the government will remediate Gospić and Pazin, but where to place a landfill in the future. Buzet does not want one, and Kaštijun is a story of its own.
The mayor of Buzet supported the statement by Peršurić, who criticized the SDP leader for saying that the impeachment of the prime minister is more important than the remediation of the ecological disaster in Gospić. "I doubt that anyone in Istria who creates, well, some will, will vote for SDP and Možemo, because they are aware of where their rule would lead them, and they don't need an adventure," he said. He also claimed he does not see a formula by which SDP, Možemo, and Most could govern together and asked where Hajdaš Dončić, whose family, as he claims, is more involved in waste than the first, second, or third echelon of the government, will be if even Milanović's "blitzkrieg" failed.
