Last year, environmental commissioners carried out 47,566 inspections in the fields of pollution control and biodiversity, biosecurity and protected natural areas, an increase of 7.05% compared to 2023, and the fines imposed amounted to 129.074 million lei, according to the activity report of the National Environment Guard (GNM), published on Tuesday.

According to centralized data, during the past year, in 361 cases the cessation of activity was ordered, and 58 provisions were issued for the abolition of works. Also, 48 proposals for the suspension of environmental agreements/authorizations were drawn up, as well as 210 criminal complaints filed with the law enforcement agencies, according to Agerpres.

In the field of waste management, GNM, in collaboration with employees of the Romanian Police and Gendarmerie, carried out 97 unannounced inspections in order to verify the collection and recovery activities of ferrous and non-ferrous waste by individuals and legal entities, in several counties of the country: Vrancea, Ialomița, Suceava, Teleorman, Dâmbovița, Călărași, Sibiu, Prahova, Giurgiu, Mehedinți, Buzău.

The results of these inspections were: 68 contravention sanctions, totaling 3.165 million lei, nine suspensions of activity of economic agents, 12 criminal reports submitted to the competent bodies, for the investigation of complex and serious cases. During the checks, 400 tons of recoverable waste, an artisanal metal melting facility and two pieces of equipment (a backhoe and a tractor-trailer vehicle plus a semi-trailer) were confiscated.

Regarding inspection and control actions at border crossing points, after the operationalization of the RO-AFM and the allocation of teams of commissioners for systematic technical controls at border crossing points, 40,110 verification actions were carried out until December 17 of last year, through which the Guard rejected the entry into the territory of Romania of a quantity of approximately 23,000 tons of waste, a quantity that was returned to the territory of the states of origin.

Also, the GNM, in collaboration with the National Authority for Consumer Protection (ANPC), organized 3,647 checks at national level, which targeted the implementation and operation of the Guarantee-Return System (SGR). Following these inspections, 535 contravention sanctions were applied, of which 318 warnings and 217 fines, amounting to 2.768 million lei.

According to the cited report, in the field of air quality, teams of commissioners from the National Environmental Guard – Bucharest Municipality Commissariat and Ilfov County Commissariat carried out, last year, 18 inspections of industrial installations with a major impact on the ambient air (all CETs in the Capital), six inspections of concrete production installations, as well as 61 inspections of large construction sites in Bucharest.

For the non-conformities found following the inspections, 55 contravention fines were applied, amounting to a total of 888,300 lei.

In addition, for failing to implement the air quality measures established by the institution, the Bucharest City Hall was sanctioned in the previous year with two fines in the amount of 200,000 lei.

In the field of biodiversity conservation, over 1,300 vehicles and dozens of boats were checked, over 350 fishing nets, 23 km of nets and 500 kg of fish were confiscated, several criminal cases were filed for illegal possession of sturgeons and specimens of sturgeon, undersized fish and turtles were released into the natural environment.