Romania is one of the main destinations of illegal waste exported from Western European countries, especially since China closed its borders to most waste in 2017. Labelled as 'raw material' for recycling, large amounts of rubbish enter the country daily, much of which is simply dumped without further processing. But parts of it are also burned as fuel in cement factories, who get paid for this. It's a million-dollar business, controlled by organised crime groups with ties to political elites. In 2019, an Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) investigation showed that the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency had authorised illegal waste shipments and owned a private business that benefited from public contracts to monitor cement factory emissions.