Swedish authorities are characterized by naivety and are held back by lax Swedish legislation. That’s what one of Sweden’s foremost environmental toxins experts says after the garbage scandal surrounding Think Pink.
– If society does not do something, this will happen again, says Nils Hydén, expert on environmental crime.
Eleven people are charged in what has been described as the worst environmental crime scandal in Sweden. It is about 21 places in 15 municipalities in Central Sweden where waste has been left, dumped, stuffed into bales and buried in the ground and covered with soil. In several places, environmental toxins have been found in high concentrations and in the smoke spread from fires in the rubbish heaps.
Nils Hydén himself worked for the police with the garbage scandal, he will testify during the trial.
– I was at a total of five crime scenes and we found heavy metals, dioxins and asbestos, among other things.
“Unprecedented”
In some places, poisons were found in quantities which, according to yesterday’s indictment, pose a significant risk to humans and the environment. In Norrtälje, garbage was buried and a staging area was built next to a bay.
– They will be there for hundreds, thousands of years. This is unprecedented.
Several municipalities were urged by their population to act long before the police struck, but they considered themselves held back by legislation with few tools, in a system based on the companies taking care of themselves.
– In general, they are characterized by Swedish blue-eyedness and naivety, and I think that is appalling. If society doesn’t do something about this, it will happen again. Because there is a lot of money to be made in this industry, criminals will find ways, says Nils Hydén, an expert on environmental crime.