Today, the trial begins against the Think Pink CEO, who has gone by several names but is best known as Bella Nilsson.
But she is not the only one who can be blamed for the environmental destruction that has taken place, says Lennart Hultman-Boye.
The police’s investigation into both environmental and ecocrimes is 50,000 pages long. But it also deals with hundreds of thousands of tonnes of rubbish from Think Pink. Garbage that was dumped and buried, and that burned and spread poisons. Now the question is whether the “Queen of Trash” ends up behind bars – again.
She has had many names and figures, the woman who was called Bella Nilsson when she ran the fast-growing recycling company Think Pink. Now a trial starts in which many are charged, but where she will be at the center. At the far end of the punishment scale is six years in prison, if she is convicted of a serious environmental crime.
“When the facade crumbled, the lie and betrayal were great”
The attention has been great. Perhaps it is partly because Bella Nilsson’s persona attracts it. And that’s what she wanted. She made herself the main character in the promotion of Think Pink – a strong woman racing to the top in a male-dominated world.
When the facade crumbled, the lie and betrayal were also great. Fine words were spoken about the best for the environment, about responsibly recycling the remains of renovations and buildings. But when jagged piles of ground garbage instead grew into mountains or were buried, people nearby became furious and scared.
What exactly was in the piles? Was it dangerous? And why didn’t the municipalities responsible for supervision act?
The regulations are partly to blame
What has happened has happened, regardless of what the final verdict will be. According to the indictment, there are 21 locations in 15 municipalities where Think Pink’s garbage was left, dumped and buried. We now know, after four years of police investigation, that the worst kinds of environmental toxins have spread into waterways, land and into the air that was filled with smoke from the many fires. Poisons that would not be found in what was claimed to be non-hazardous waste.
But we now also know that a regulatory framework full of loopholes is partly to blame. We also know that municipalities and other authorities gave the company the green light to continue, because they did not make sure to get answers to the citizens’ questions. It is not only the defendants who are responsible for what happened, regardless of how the trial ends. And it won’t do that until the summer of 2025.