Cattle have been filmed feeding on hospital waste at a landfill in northern Iran, exposing failures in waste management that risk contaminating livestock, soil and the human food chain, according to a report by Rokna website on Saturday.
The video from the landfill in Talesh shows cattle roaming through piles of refuse, including hospital waste, highlighting the apparent lack of effective segregation, containment and disposal measures for hazardous materials.
Hazardous waste enters food chain
Hospital waste ranks among the most dangerous categories of refuse because it can contain infectious materials, contaminated equipment, sharp objects and hazardous chemicals. Allowing livestock to graze in direct contact with such waste, according to the report, raises concerns that contaminants could spread through meat, milk and other agricultural products consumed by people.
The footage also points to broader shortcomings in landfill management beyond the presence of medical waste. Open dumping without effective isolation, daily cover or barriers preventing animal access leaves waste exposed to livestock, wildlife and the surrounding environment.
Such conditions, Rokna wrote, can contaminate soil, generate polluted leachate that may seep into groundwater, attract disease-carrying insects and animals, and release foul odors and harmful gases. When cattle graze freely in these areas, the potential for biological and chemical contaminants to enter the food chain increases.
The risks, based on the report, are particularly acute in Talesh, where mountains, forests, farmland, residential areas and the Caspian Sea lie in close proximity, allowing pollution to spread more rapidly through interconnected ecosystems.
Environmental and public health concerns
Environmental degradation extends beyond the immediate health risks. Large volumes of uncovered waste can damage natural habitats, reduce land quality and increase the likelihood of contaminants spreading into surrounding soil and water resources, added the report.
The conditions documented by Rokna also suggest failures in basic waste management practices, including separating hazardous medical waste from ordinary refuse, safely treating infectious materials and preventing livestock from entering disposal sites.
Without urgent measures to improve waste segregation, strengthen landfill controls and restrict animal access, the Talesh landfill risks becoming a continuing source of contamination affecting livestock, the environment and public health, the report added.
This time, Taghi Changalvaei was one of those who went.
He entered the fire to help save Khayiz, a protected area in the southern Zagros near Behbahan, in Khuzestan province. He did not return.
For Zagros communities, his death was familiar. For years, local residents and environmental volunteers have been losing friends and relatives to fires that return each summer across the mountains.
Iranian media have reported that since 2020, 27 people have died while trying to control fires in the Zagros.
Most were not professional firefighters. They had no specialized training, no protective clothing and little more than improvised tools.
They went because the forests were burning, and because in many parts of the Zagros, people know that if they do not move first, help may arrive too late.
A landscape primed to burn
The Zagros Mountains run for about 1,600 kilometers, from northwestern Iran toward the Persian Gulf. Their oak woodlands cover almost six million hectares, roughly 40 percent of Iran’s forest area, and support millions of rural livelihoods while helping regulate water and prevent soil erosion.
The Persian oak defines this landscape, shaping village economies, water systems and grazing patterns. But the Zagros oak belt has been shrinking for decades under pressure from illegal logging, overgrazing, drought, climate change and poor management.
Each summer, fire turns that decline into an emergency. That pattern was visible again in Khayiz, where a blaze that began on Badil Mountain burned for days through protected forests near Behbahan, exposing shortages of aerial firefighting capacity.
Experts say the fires have become larger, harder to contain and more closely tied to climate stress, fuel buildup and weak management.
Winter and spring rains can cover the slopes with grasses and seasonal plants. By early summer, heat dries that vegetation into fuel load: the combustible layer that lets a spark, a cigarette butt, a campfire or an intentional blaze spread quickly.
One part of the debate concerns grazing. In the past, livestock consumed part of the seasonal vegetation that now dries out in the mountains. From around 2021, authorities pursued efforts to reduce grazing pressure more seriously to help forests and pastures recover from overuse.
The aim was environmental protection: overgrazing has long damaged Zagros forests, limiting natural regeneration and weakening young oak growth. But some experts argue that reducing livestock presence without alternative vegetation management may have left more dry grass and brush by summer.
That does not make grazing restrictions the cause of the fires. Climate change, drought, oak decline, human negligence, arson, weak fire roads, aircraft shortages, poor coordination and lack of equipment all remain central. Unmanaged vegetation, some experts say, may be one piece of a larger puzzle.
In parts of Spain and the western United States, targeted grazing is used to reduce wildfire fuel loads and maintain firebreaks. For the Zagros, the question is whether the state can protect forests without removing one form of vegetation control and failing to replace it with another.
Bigger fires, weaker capacity
The statistics point to a worsening burden. In the Iranian year that began in March 2021, about 21,000 hectares of forests across the country burned, according to figures cited in Iranian media. By the year that began in March 2024, that figure had risen to about 27,000 hectares.
By November 2025, Iran had recorded more than 2,300 fires across national land, forests and rangelands, burning about 46,000 hectares. A recent study of the southern Zagros recorded more than 13,000 fire events from 2000 to 2023, with a sharp increase in the most recent years covered by the study.
The year that began in March 2026 has opened with another wave of fires, from Khayiz and Mongasht to the highlands of Lorestan, Fars and Kordestan provinces. Mongasht, a long mountain massif between Khuzestan and Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari, is one of several rugged areas where local residents are often the first responders.
The financial picture has also worsened. On paper, the rial budget of Iran’s Natural Resources and Watershed Management Organization has increased. But once the collapse in the value of Iran’s currency is taken into account, its real resources appear to have fallen sharply.
Calculations based on budget figures cited in Iranian media and market exchange rates suggest the organization’s dollar-denominated budget dropped from roughly $94 million in the Iranian year that began in March 2021 to about $41 million in the year that began in March 2026. Compared with the year that began in March 2016, the decline is estimated at more than 60 percent.
The direction is clear: while the fires have grown, the state’s real capacity to fight them has shrunk.
The consequences are visible on the ground. The fire in Khayiz is now out. But for Changalvaei‘s family, and for the families of others who died trying to save the Zagros, the fire has not ended.
Without changes in policy, funding and firefighting capacity, next summer will bring the same scene again: men with shovels, branches and bottles of water climbing toward the smoke, while fire moves through the oaks and leaves behind ash and names.
The comments, published by the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA), came as officials highlighted the growing presence of new psychoactive substances that they say are not covered by Iran's current anti-drug legislation.
"Seven thousand people die every year because of consuming counterfeit narcotics," Amirhossein Yavari, deputy for prevention and treatment at Iran's Drug Control Headquarters, said.
"These deaths occur because of impurities and dangerous compounds found in illicit narcotics and psychotropic substances, and accurate public awareness can play an important role in reducing the harm."
Contaminants and hazardous additives in illegal narcotics and psychotropic substances have made them increasingly dangerous, Yavari said.
Iran has one of the world’s most serious drug-use problems, driven by its proximity to Afghanistan and the long-standing availability of opium and heroin.
Official and expert estimates vary, but Iran is generally believed to have around 2.8 million regular drug users, while broader estimates including occasional users can reach 4 million or more.
Last week, Soleiman Abbasi, Director General of Treatment at Iran's Drug Control Headquarters, warned of the rapid spread of synthetic narcotics and new psychoactive substances in Iran, announcing that the number of people with substance use disorders in the country has reached approximately 3.8 million.
Opium remains the most common drug, though heroin, methamphetamine and synthetic drugs have also become major concerns.
Hundreds of substances outside legal framework
In separate comments, Mohammad Tarahomi, legal and parliamentary affairs director at Iran's Drug Control Headquarters, said around 409 narcotic, psychotropic and new psychoactive substances identified in Iran are not included in the country's official list of controlled drugs.
Updating the list is one of the most urgent priorities in proposed amendments to Iran's anti-drug law because it has not been revised since 2011, Tarahomi said.
"In the past we generally classified drugs into three main groups: narcotics, psychotropic substances and stimulants," Tarahomi added. "Today, not only in Iran but around the world, we are facing a phenomenon known as new psychoactive substances."
Many of the newer compounds, he said, have more severe effects than traditional narcotics or previously known synthetic drugs and differ in how they affect users.
A study using Iran’s Forensic Medicine Organization data by Lancaster University of the United Kingdom recorded 11,944 drug-related deaths between March 2022 and March 2024, with the average age of death around 37 and men accounting for the overwhelming majority.
Older official data showed about 3,000 drug-abuse deaths a year, suggesting the annual toll has risen sharply in recent years.
Not all of the substances are entirely new, Tarahomi added. Some, including so-called magic mushrooms, have existed for years but have become subject to tighter restrictions as evidence of their medical and social consequences has grown.
Most newly identified substances, however, are synthetic chemicals created by combining existing compounds to produce drugs with different effects.
Tarahomi said some new psychoactive substances can have even more severe consequences than established narcotics and stimulants, citing cases in which methamphetamine-induced psychosis has led users to lose touch with reality and commit violent crimes.
Manufacturers, he added, can rapidly create new substances by making minor chemical changes, making quicker legal updates essential to keep pace with the evolving drug market.
