COPENHAGEN, Denmark (CN) — The name Nordic Waste has been on everyone’s lips in Denmark since a landslide involving toxic material at the company's premises damaged buildings and now threatens to cascade into a local stream.
As its name suggests, the environmental technology company specializes in handling soil polluted by industry.
When Danish officials ordered the owner — the country's sixth-richest man, Torben Østergaard Nielsen — to guarantee the company would pay for the cleanup, he drew intense public scrutiny by filing for bankruptcy on Jan. 19. That left the government to foot the bill.
“The order alone exceeds the company’s financial capacity and legal obligation,” Nordic Stream wrote in a press release declaring the company unfit to fight the landslide.
Since then, authorities have spent up to 3 million Danish kroner ($430,000) per day, as 50 people work with pipes, mud cleaners and heavy machinery to keep polluted surface water and soil away from the stream, according to DR.
Pelle Dragsted, a Parliament member for the Red-Green Alliance, called the incident an environmental disaster. He is just one of the many Danish politicians to criticize Nordic Waste for its response.
”The company is responsible and obliged to keep polluted soil on site. In Denmark and the EU, we have a principle that the polluter pays," Dragsted said. "Instead, Nordic Waste sent their employees home immediately, left the cleaning task for the municipality, and have since then declared bankruptcy to avoid financial liability.”
Minister of Environment Magnus Heunicke called Nielsen’s move “a bit too clever,” showing a “complete lack of social responsibility.”
And Minister of Justice Peter Hummelgaard said that “when you are very strong, like Denmark’s sixth-richest man, you have a great responsibility.”
Nordic Waste's job is to safely store and clean toxic waste, as it can contain lead, copper, chrome and mercury, as well as oil and gasses.
Recently, the company received large shipments of soil from Norwegian and Danish “mink graveyards” — the latter a consequence of the social-democratic government’s 2020 decision to kill the country's minks due to fears of a new Covid mutation. The company also used microfiller, a residual from cement production that can contain heavy metals, to stabilize large mounds of earth.
Since all of these pollutants can affect humans, authorities have recommended not walking barefoot on, growing vegetables in or allowing children to play with the soil.
However, following months of record rains this fall, the Nordic Waste mounds presumably became unstable, as they rest on a foundation of slippery clay.
That triggered landslides in the central Jutland municipality of Randers in December 2023, raising fears that the dirt would spill into a local stream, Alling Å, and end up in Randers Fjord, a bigger estuary by the sea.
The landslide has already left a central road blocked and could bury the nearby village of Ølst with up to 5 meters (over 16 feet) of contaminated soil, if it continues to move.
However, it remains uncertain whether the government can obtain money from Nordic Waste after its bankruptcy — especially since the company has not broken any rules or violated its original environmental agreement with the municipality.
There was no capacity limit in the contract, so Nordic Waste did not technically err by continuing to receive and load soil onto the site, even after a landslide was detected, said Ellen Margrethe Basse, professor and expert in environmental law, to Danish newspaper Information.
Now, the Danish government is discussing legislative changes to prevent taxpayers and local municipalities from paying disaster-management expenses in future cases.
The country needs better ways to require compensation from companies who violate environmental safety, according to Dragsted, who noted that Nordic Waste will most likely use its limited equity to pay back creditors rather than society.
“We need to examine the legal options. But the owner had limited responsibility,” he said.
Dragsted suggested three political moves to ensure companies' responsibility in the future.
“We could introduce stricter liabilities for owners within specific environmentally sensitive and high-risk industries. There is also the option of copying the oil industry model, where a mother company puts in a guarantee; or a third idea would be to establish a collective industry insurance fund, that all such companies pay to,” he said.
While Nordic Waste is formally shut down, the municipality of Randers continues its daily efforts to prevent the landslide from moving further and contaminated water from spreading.
As of mid-February, authorities have established an on-site sewage treatment facility due to high concentrations of heavy metals and above-average pH values.
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