The second session of the Working Group “Environment” of the National Convent of the European Union was held on Thursday, May 31 at the National Assembly of Serbia. On the subject of waste management and local plans, spoke Dragoljub Todic, professor, working group internal expert , Prvoslav Plavsic and Vladimir Pavicevic, research team members, Radmila Serovic, Head of Department for the management of municipal and special waste streams in the Ministry of Environment, Mining and Spatial Planning and Vesna Stefanovic, PUC from Vranje.

During the meeting, there were presented the findings of field research conducted from November of 2011 until April 2012, on a sample of 26 municipalities in Serbia that are designated as regional centers for waste management, and analysis which included Kikinda, Bor, Kraljevo , Ivanjica and Vladicin Han, the process of making and implementation of local and regional waste management plans.

It was concluded that the situation in certain municipalities and regions varies widely, but that is in general lot unfavorable considering a number of objective parameters. It was determined that in many cases there are no regional landfills or they are still in ndesign phase  or  mutual agreeent phase of the municipalities.

One obvious problem is the poor technical equipment and disorder landfills, many of which are older more than 40 years, lack of physical and unsecured was also noticed.  It points to the fact that the landfill re-emerge, and that the lists of landfills are rarely updated.

Ther were identified a key gaps in local plans and their implementation – evaluation plans, criteria for their evaluation, implementation, monitoring and fundding. Participants in the discussion initiated the issue of the financial basis for the implementation of local waste management plans.

On the basis of the analysis and discussionthere will be prepared recommendations for improvement of local waste management plans and submitted to decision makers at all levels.

Meeting of the Working Group Environment was organized by European movement in Serbia within the Green  initiative campaign.