Although his country does not have a nuclear power plant, Mario Crnković from Novi Grad, in the far north-west of Bosnia and Herzegovina, fears that radioactive waste could end up on his doorstep and change his life.
Crnković’s home in the small town on the River Una is just two or three kilometres away as the crow flies from Trgovska Gora, an area on the opposite bank of the river that belongs to Croatia, he told BBC Serbian.
This is where waste from the Krško nuclear power plant, jointly owned by Slovenia and Croatia, as well as other radioactive waste from Croatian industry and healthcare institutions, is supposed to be stored, representatives of the Croatian parliament announced after the adoption of the Law on the Construction of the Radioactive Waste Management Centre.
Thirty-eight-year-old activist Mario and his association Green Team oppose this. “We are fighting for the right to live in north-western Bosnia and Herzegovina. This would be a precedent, because we have a case where even nuclear waste from a third country (Slovenia, where the Krško power plant is located) would be placed on the border with another country, in an extremely non-transparent manner,” Crnković claims.
Mario is not the only one concerned, as between 250,000 and 300,000 people could be at risk if the waste disposal project goes ahead, experts from the Legal and Expert Team of Bosnia and Herzegovina for Trgovska Gora have estimated.
Most of them live on the Bosnian side of the Una, they add.
However, the Croatian Fund for Financing the Decommissioning and Disposal of Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel of the Krško Nuclear Power Plant told the BBC that Croatia, as a “sovereign state”, is building the waste storage facility “on its own territory, in full compliance with professional standards and legal regulations”.
“The construction of the storage facility, as well as its supervision, must be carried out in such a way that it poses no impact whatsoever on the population or the environment. The fear stems from a large amount of disinformation and falsehoods being presented to the public,” they state in a written response.
So far, Krško has been the only nuclear power plant in the countries of the former Yugoslavia.
However, Serbian officials have for months been speaking increasingly openly about plans to build their own plant, a topic they have also discussed with officials from Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom.
During a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to Belgrade in 2024, Serbia signed agreements with France in the fields of nuclear energy and critical mineral raw materials.
All of this raises new questions about the management of radioactive waste in the Balkans, which is generated not only by nuclear power plants, but also in hospitals, during medical research, and in industrial production.
How the storage project caused a dispute between Croatia and Bosnia
Croatia is planning to build its own storage facility on Trgovska Gora, in the municipality of Dvor in the Banija region, in south-eastern Croatia.
This had been planned in the country even before the break-up of Yugoslavia and the war in the first half of the 1990s. Four locations were considered, and in 1999 the choice fell on Trgovska Gora.
Almost three decades later, the Croatian parliament took a step towards the realisation of this project, which is to be implemented in Čerkezovac on Trgovska Gora.
It was an “exclusively political decision, because no relevant criteria or procedures were taken into account” when selecting the site, Edin Delić, a professor at the Faculty of Mining, Geology and Civil Engineering in Tuzla and a member of the Expert Team of Bosnia and Herzegovina for the protection of Trgovska Gora, told the BBC.
“The first question is whether there will be a storage facility or a disposal site on Trgovska Gora, because at the moment no one knows that, and quietly and gradually a story is beginning about a disposal site for more complex substances, and perhaps even radioactive materials from the Krško power plant.
“I would not rule out nuclear fuel either,” warns Delić, who is also the mayor of the municipality of Lukavac in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The project does not envisage the construction of a disposal site, but rather “a storage facility in which the waste will remain for about 30 years, after which it will be transferred to a disposal site for which Croatia has yet to determine a location”, representatives of the Croatian Fund managing the project respond. The decision on the location was made based on the “elimination criteria of the International Atomic Energy Agency”, although all four originally considered locations “met the required conditions”, they add.
According to information published on the website of Croatia’s Radioactive Waste Management Centre, a storage facility is planned for institutional radioactive waste from medicine, science and industry, as well as a long-term storage facility for low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste from the Krško power plant.
They claim that spent nuclear fuel from the power plant will not be stored there. Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković has also assured the public that “expert assessments” have shown that “all of this is completely harmless to people”. “If it were dangerous, we would not be doing it,” he added.
However, Delić states that Bosnia and Herzegovina has not received precise data on the matter, and that the project was approved in the Croatian parliament without an environmental impact assessment.
The construction of such a facility is also controversial because of its proximity to the BiH border, to which “at least two-thirds of the impact of that facility” could be felt, the expert claims.
“The site is on a slope towards the bank of the Una, and all surface and underground waters, as well as the prevailing wind patterns in that area, are directed towards the river. Novi Grad in BiH is almost twice as close to that site as the municipality of Dvor in Croatia,” Delić argues and adds:
“The shortest line from that location to the River Una is less than a kilometre, and there are also sources of drinking water for Novi Grad and the surrounding area.”
Criticism has also come from BiH over the fact that the cross-border population was not formally included in public consultations on the project, nor was a cross-border environmental impact assessment submitted.
However, representatives of the competent Fund claim that the impact assessment will be completed in the first quarter of 2026, after which the documentation will also be forwarded to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In October, former military facilities in Čerkezovac were removed, but such documentation was not required for that activity, they add. Nevertheless, “a decision on the construction of the Centre can only be made after the environmental impact assessment procedure has been completed, and only if it is shown that the project is acceptable,” the Fund concludes.
Although Republika Srpska is located near Trgovska Gora, this case is one of the rare instances in which both entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina are on the same side.
Criticism is also coming from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the country’s other entity, from which Professor Delić also comes.
Experts from both entities are part of the expert team.
“The Trgovska Gora case has united Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is divided along almost every possible line,” activist Mario Crnković believes.
“People from all parts of the country came to Novi Grad at their own expense to express their opposition to the arrival of waste at Trgovska Gora,” he adds.
The expert team has filed a complaint with the Espoo Convention Committee in Geneva and has also announced the possibility of a lawsuit against Croatia.
Edin Delić believes that the consequences of such a facility could affect “future generations” as well. “We also have secondary or tertiary impacts: for example, who will buy honey from the Banija region if a nuclear waste disposal site is built there? Would you give that to a child to eat?” the professor asks.
These questions are of greatest concern to Dragoljub Arbutina, a 60-year-old beekeeper from the village of Bansko Vrpolje in the municipality of Dvor. His house is about 10 kilometres away from the former barracks in Čerkezovac, where construction is planned. Although he immediately says that he “is not an expert” to assess how it might affect his area, he is “against everything that is not natural, including waste”, he told BBC Serbian and adds:”The very phrase nuclear waste immediately reminds me of the Chernobyl disaster – that’s the first thing I think of.”
Through the Croatian Fund, Dragoljub visited the power plant in Slovenia, as well as another one in Nitra, Slovakia. As he says, there he was able to see that “people live normally and that agricultural crops are normal”.
However, he fears that even if this is the case in Dvor as well, people from other regions of Croatia and from abroad will be distrustful of his honey. “If I sell honey, for example, in Istria, when one day that waste arrives in Dvor, people will say ‘there is nuclear waste there and maybe that honey is contaminated’.
“I fear that agricultural producers from this area will lose sales because of that psychological barrier.”
He also fears that all of this could further reduce the value of land and houses in their area.
How dangerous is radioactive waste?
Negative impacts of radioactive waste on nature and people primarily occur as a result of incidents or failures during which it ends up in the environment, according to the website of the Directorate for Sustainability of Pollution.
When it enters the air, water or soil, it can spread through the food chain or have a direct negative effect on people, it adds.
Direct exposure can cause immediate symptoms and acute radiation sickness, and in the long term various types of cancer, while the impact on future generations is reflected in genetic mutations and possible deformities in newborns.
These are the main reasons why such waste is handled with great care, as this “minimises the possibility of causing harm”, says Professor Catherine Morris from the University of Manchester, adding:“This means that it is packaged and stored in large, reinforced and secured facilities, so that the risk to the environment and public health is completely reduced or eliminated. Even the bulky packaging is taken into account so that transport, as well as potential accidents, can take place without the spread of these materials,” the scientist told BBC Serbian.
How is radioactive waste managed?
Unlike other types of waste, the management of radioactive waste requires a long-term process with strict safety measures and long-term planning.
The method of management depends on “the strength of the radiation source and the half-life and decay time” of these materials, Jagoš Raičević, former director of the public enterprise Nuclear Facilities of Serbia, told BBC Serbian.
“There is also a difference between waste and sources, which include used lightning conductors – they are treated as waste because they are no longer in use, but they are handled in a special way, which is why there is a separate facility for them,” emphasises the expert, who previously also worked for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Based on the strength of the radiation source, waste is classified as low-, intermediate- and high-level radioactive waste.
This classification also determines whether the waste is stored or disposed of.
Storage involves keeping the waste under constant supervision for a certain period, usually from 10 to 100 years, while disposal means placing the waste in a facility with no intention of removing it in the future, according to the website of Croatia’s Radioactive Waste Management Centre.
Low-level radioactive waste, which mainly comes from medicine and industry, is generally disposed of immediately in “functional, purpose-built facilities”, without prior storage, says Professor Morris.
“For intermediate- and high-level radioactive waste, temporary storage is mandatory for thermal cooling, which most often takes place in specially designed pools before further work in such facilities becomes possible, which usually takes several decades,” adds the Director of the Nuclear Waste Services at the University of Manchester.
The level of activity also corresponds to the risk that the waste poses to the environment and human health.
Low-level radioactive waste carries a lower risk and is “routinely disposed of at nuclear facilities that are actively operating”, Morris notes.
“High- and intermediate-level radioactive waste has higher radiotoxicity and requires international approval for its long-term disposal in special underground repositories,” the British scientist adds.
The depth at which waste is managed often corresponds to the level of radioactivity. “The higher the activity of the waste, the greater the depth at which it is disposed of.
“Low-level radioactive waste can be disposed of at the surface, while high-level radioactive waste, which mostly includes spent nuclear fuel, is placed at depths of several hundred metres to as much as two kilometres underground,” explains Jagoš Raičević.
It remains there “for a very long time”, and is therefore disposed of below the depths at which groundwater flows, the Serbian expert adds.
Where does the Balkans store radioactive waste?
In Krško, a town in south-eastern Slovenia on the River Sava, the nuclear power plant began operating in 1983 and today provides one-third of Slovenia’s and one-fifth of Croatia’s electricity needs.
Slovenia disposes of spent nuclear fuel at the power plant itself, while low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste is stored at the Brinje facility near the capital, Ljubljana.
In 2024, construction began on a new disposal site in the settlement of Vrbina, near Krško.
It is expected to meet Slovenia’s needs for the next 100 years and is planned to be completed in 2027, according to the Slovenian Agency for Radioactive Waste Management (ARAO).
Unlike Slovenia, there is no facility for the disposal of radioactive waste on the territory of Serbia, only several storage facilities, the public enterprise Nuclear Facilities of Serbia said in a written response to BBC Serbian.
The enterprise was established in 2009, when it was separated from the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, and has since been responsible for managing all nuclear facilities in the country located in Vinča, a settlement about ten kilometres from Belgrade.
These include two old hangars and a “radium bunker” from the Yugoslav period, which are “a legacy of the former nuclear programmes of the old Yugoslavia”.
They were closed in 2012 and no new radioactive waste is accepted there, the enterprise says.
At that time, a third hangar and a “secure storage facility” were built, which today receive radioactive waste, mostly from medicine and industry, as well as spent ionising sources, primarily old, replaced lightning conductors, they add.
The new facilities are designed to receive institutional waste over a period of 40 years, and less than 10 per cent of their capacity has been filled.
There are also four underground tanks for the storage of liquid waste, they add.
In 2019, Serbia adopted a new Law on Radiation and Nuclear Safety and Security, which sets out the conditions under which the country could in future also obtain facilities for the disposal of such waste. “It is expected that, as part of plans to introduce nuclear energy in Serbia, the issue of selecting a location for radioactive waste disposal will also be raised.”
The law also provides for the drafting of a Strategy for the Management of Spent Fuel and Radioactive Waste, to be adopted by the government for a period of seven years.
Other former Yugoslav republics also have storage facilities, primarily for low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste from medicine and industry.
In Montenegro, it is located in the capital, Podgorica, while before 2006 and the country’s independence, it was stored in Vinča.
In North Macedonia, it is stored in the town of Petrovec near Skopje.
(BBC Serbia, 09.02.2026)