Apart from the minister of environment and green transition, Marija Vučković, other participants in the conference organised by the magazine Poslovni dnevnik entitled the “New Era of Waste Management” included Mirko Budiša, deputy director of the Fund, and Zvonimir Majić, head of the Fund’s Sector for Special Categories of Waste.
In an interview with the editor-in-chief Mladen Miletić, the minister of environment and green transition, Marija Vučković, said that Croatia was making progress regarding waste management, but that it could always do better. "There are four basic categories that the Ministry is focusing on: the environment, nature, water and waste. They need to be boosted with the green transition, but old challenges need to be solved first," the minister said, adding that some regions were making faster progress while others were slower, but that was to be expected. "We are now at 36 percent of recycling and 49 percent of separation of waste. In terms of glass, paper, wood and plastic, we have already achieved the EU's goals. We still have a lot of work to do, but we are on the right track," added minister Vučković.
Deputy director of the Fund, Mirko Budiša, participated in a panel discussing waste management strategies in the context of global challenges such as climate risks and plastic waste. In the context of cooperation and support to local self-government units and utility companies, Budiša pointed out that the existence of infrastructure was the basis for the establishment of a waste management system and that the Fund had been investing in such projects for years co-financing the purchase of containers, municipal vehicles, as well as the construction of various facilities such as composting or sorting plants.
Zvonimir Majić, the head of the Sector for Special Categories of Waste at the Fund, spoke at the panel about the challenges and opportunities of managing special categories of waste in Croatia and pointed out that in the previous year the Fund had announced changes in the system of management of special waste categories of last year, with an emphasis on redefining the fees paid to waste collectors, but also on the calculation of fees for mandatory categories of waste. Majić reminded that the European Union adopted a directive in June 2018 that defines the procedures for the formation of fees to producers. According to this directive, all costs of managing certain types of waste must be borne by producers, with the possibility of reducing fees through the sale of valuable waste fractions.
"We have revised the fees so that we take into account the collectors, i.e. their labour and infrastructure costs. We adopted the fee amounts in January this year and they have been implemented for three to four months. Also, the application of eco-modulation should prompt companies to design their products in compliance with ecological design," said Majić.
