Index – Interior – Mini-Dubai: 190,000 cubic meters of illegal waste must be transported before construction begins

It is strange that the piles of sleepers on Rákosrendező caught fire just now. In this way, they could definitely get rid of them cheaper than if they had to be transported and then disposed of. The people living in the area, on the other hand, breathed in the smoke containing all kinds of pollutants for days – this is how Klára Podmaniczky Award-winning city defender of Népszava Garay felt about the huge fire that recently occurred in the area selected for the mini-Dubai project.

The paper sent a letter to the Metropolitan Disaster Management Directorate to find out: on what basis were they sure that the burning of a significant amount of piles – one hundred meters long, twenty meters wide and five meters high – and 10,000 cubic meters of sleepers was not harmful to health, but they were interested also about the cause of the fire.

During the extinguishing, the disaster prevention mobile laboratory carried out measurements in a hundred-meter radius of the fire, as well as in a residential area. No dangerous substance above the limit value was detected in a residential area, but the smell of smoke could be felt in the area

– indicated the Metropolitan Disaster Management Directorate, adding that “the fire investigation procedure is in progress, so we cannot provide more information about the causes”.

There is still a lot of work to be done in the field

Recently, Rákosdrenző has been in the news not only because of the fire, but because this is the area where the government, with the involvement of the United Arab Emirates, would implement the project known as mini- or even maxi-Dubai. The bill on this matter was submitted by Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén at the end of March.

The Hungarian government undertook the cleaning of the area – including the removal of the residents and companies and the remediation of the area – the Ministry of Construction and Transport (ÉKM) has already started the related works, and so far it has been possible to reach an agreement with barely 30 percent of the former tenants.

However, this is only one of the tasks that must be carried out, there is also the remediation of the heavily polluted area.

“One of the largest illegal landfills in Budapest is being liquidated. The removal of waste, which in many cases has a serious health-damaging effect, is in the interest of the people living in the area and all of Budapest. Apparently, it hasn’t bothered the people living there and the concerned district municipalities either. But the ministry will create a healthy, orderly and developing environment for the people who live there and for all Budapest residents”, said the Ministry of Education and Culture, emphasizing that they have already measured the municipal and other waste in the area of ​​the cancer center:

• the size of the area affected by the surface landfill is 126,425 square meters (12.6 hectares),
• the total estimated amount of illegally disposed waste exceeds 190,000 cubic meters, and a significant part of it is harmful to health.

Currently, public tenders aimed at waste disposal and damage remediation are being drawn up. According to the plans, the waste clearance will last until the end of this year. However, the assessment of the subsurface pollution and the planning of a technical solution suitable for its removal will only be completed by September 2025. And construction can only begin after the remediation has been completed.