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Serbia; Round table on amendments to the Law on Waste Management

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Amendments to the law on the order of cementer

The three environmental movements, Beocin, Kosjerić and Vrbas today teamed up at the Round Table in the National Assembly in Belgrade. The meeting was dedicated to the Draft Law on Waste Management, which, according to our findings, was initiated by the Cement Industry of Serbia. The organizers of the event were the Regional Environmental Center – REC Office in Serbia and the UNECOP from Paraćin. The round table was attended by representatives of the Environmental Agency, members of the Committee on Environmental Protection of the National Assembly, the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, representatives of business associations and citizens’ associations. Notwithstanding the regular invitation, the meeting was not attended by representatives of cement plants and responsible persons from the Ministry.

Speakers of the Round Table were Vladimir Janković, UNEKOOP, Ivana Stojiljković, President of the National Environmental Protection Committee of the RS, Nebojša Redžić, Environmental Protection Agency of RS, prof. Dr. Ilija Brečeski, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Belgrade and Dr. Ilija Vukadinović, Pediatrician, Kosjerić Environmental Movement.

In the absence of responsible persons from other stakeholders, we tried, of course, to put some energy into “friendly chatting and educating professional speakers”.

It has happened, that several cementers of the business of the work have initiated the procedure of changing a law! They need spalio municipal waste to be more competitive on the market, as they said! In that intention, they would have succeeded two months ago, so that the kosherans could not get up! The cement industry is probably one of the better market conjunctures not only in the Serbian market, even in front of the IT sector. The absence of waste incineration will certainly not be without profits! Maybe it will not “conquer” some of the new markets and maybe it will not completely “devastate” the environment in which they achieve their business goals!

The government of RS has stopped the adoption of this law because, as the Prime Minister said yesterday in Kosjerić, the opposing dilemmas were: endangered competitiveness of cement and endangered environment and human health, and therefore acknowledging that they are excluding each other!

It protect the environment and human health and at the same time burn waste in cement plants in Serbia! Maybe somewhere else, but not in Serbia!

Safety measures in the incinerators in Vienna are 30% higher than the incineration plant itself! The recent disaster in the plant has been effectively remedied by a “quick vitamin injection” of several million euros! – Among other things, we heard at today’s gathering! There is nothing “all Serbian”. Our disasters are also quickly solved – “burying underground, at night, without interruption”.

Hiding behind the application of European technologies in Serbia does not drink water! In Serbia, as prof. Brečeski says, there is no continuous and complete monitoring of any single segment of the environment! For a large group of harmful substances emitted from various industries, there is no institution that would properly verify them! The application of state-of-the-art technologies also implies the application of the accompanying standards of surveillance and records.

Waste streams are not fully controlled, and the evidence is the recent “rich digs of the Security and Information Agency”! How many more poisonous abuses in the country are piercing through a thin sheet metal!? How did those thousands of tons of hazardous waste evade records and control!?

“However, cement plants, as highly morally and corporately responsible organizations, are completely immune to the opportunities that open up their business environment (without supervision)”! We are convinced of their richly illustrated brochures!

In nearly 14 years of our battle with contaminants, we have been convinced many times that the inspection visits business operators by announcement, there are almost no extraordinary, unannounced controls! Operators have enough time to squeeze and run for a few hours of control. Who will ask you to continuously control the cement plants if only non-hazardous, municipal waste is present, and not some poisonous rubbish that hundreds of companies in Serbia will offer with a high fee? And who will control the technological discipline in high-risk burning procedures? Still no one! Proof that this is exactly like that, we get from our friends at the security guard from Beocin!

Possible cessation of cement lobby, by adopting proposed amendments and amendments to the Law on Waste Management, would only be another proof of how much the Government of Serbia does not care about the health of citizens and that everything in this country really has its price!

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