Environmental Protection Committee Chairman Dr Branislav Blazic opened the first in a series of public hearings aimed at identifying waste management problems in the Republic of Serbia. The idea is to, after the problems are defined, implement a series of solutions which would, by mid-2017, lead to a set of new laws concerning the environmental protection system, which would in turn advance Serbia’s positioning as regards the opening of Chapter 27.

The representatives of the relevant ministry, Serbian Chamber of Commerce and NGOs listed the problems concerning waste control, recycling, rehabilitation of waste dumps, cleaning of polluted areas, financing of the Green Fund, restructuring of utilities companies and raising social awareness on environmental protection.

The participants of the public hearing said that the amendments and modifications to the Waste Management Law and Environmental Protection Law were passed in order to adjust them to the regulations concerning the allocation of state assistance and relevant EU regulations, however, new laws have to be drafted to tackle the challenges the Republic of Serbia comes up against in the environmental protection system.

Waste flows and different types of waste ending up in landfills together hike up the costs of sorting and recycling and hinder flow control at the landfills. Wild landfills, communal waste containing dangerous materials and their destruction is not up to ecological code which leads to environmental contamination.

Dr Branislav Blazic closed the public hearing saying that the systemic operation of public enterprises is one of the chief problems which could be resolved through a private-public partnership, but also added that there are other unresolved issues such as depositing of secondary raw materials and wild landfill recoveries.

The Committee Chairman announced that the next public hearing on defining environmental problems will be organised next week.