30 boxes of hazardous waste found in North Kazakhstan

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PETROPAVLOVSK. KAZINFORM - 30 boxes of luminescent lamps have been found in dead arm of the Yessil River in Kyzylzhar district of North-Kazakhstan region, Kazinform reports.

The ecology department of the region learnt about the hazardous finding from the social network, says Director Yermek Umarov. The specialists of the ecology department, police and environmental prosecutor's office arrived at the location right away.

On the ice-covered dead arm of the river there laid the boxes. 600 luminescent lamps were inside.

"It is difficult to estimate the size of the danger. These lamps contain mercury. If they got broken, the hazardous substance would escape to the water. As flood rise starts the flow could carry the mercury down the river and contaminate it. Nothing will help then. You can't clean the river because of mercury vapors accumulate," Yermek Umarov said.

The police will provide legal estimation of the action of an individual or organization which threw away such an amount of hazardous substance. The ecology department will calculate the damage and issue a fine. "It is not much in terms of money but to evaluate the damage that could be potentially caused to people's health is impossible," Yermek Umarov added.

"In Petropavlovsk there are companies which handle this sort of waste lamps. There are special-purpose containers installed around the city. The akimat should arrange utilization of this sort of waste. The west of Kazakhstan came up with a simple solution - the department of natural resource and natural resource management provide up to KZT 3 million annually for disposal of these lamps and container service. All state organizations hand over the used lamps to a disposal company which won a tender for this kind of service,"  he noted.

The press office of the region's department of internal affairs commented that Kyzylzhar authorities collected the found material and submitted to the ecology department for expertise. A procedural decision will be made afterwards.

For information, in North Kazakhstan there were installed about 80 hazardous waste  containers.  


 

 

 

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