ZAGREB, May 12, 2019 - About 100 people rallied in the northern town of Koprivnica on Saturday to protest against the planned construction of a regional waste management centre at Piškornica.
Ivan Jakupić, the head of the Green Piškornica Association which organised the rally, told reporters that the project posed a threat to a nearby water pumping site which is vital for the entire Koprivnica-Križevci County.
"The present practice of disposing waste from the whole of north-western Croatia at the Piškornica landfill, which is located only seven kilometres from the centre of Koprivnica, is unacceptable," Jakupić said.
He said that the project could not be justified because on entering the European Union Croatia undertook to sort considerable quantities of waste "on the doorstep". Such a sustainable waste management policy makes the construction of regional centres unnecessary, he added.
"We need a landfill for inert waste, that is waste that cannot be sorted. Such a landfill must not be located in the low-lying part of our county but in its hilly area," Jakupić said, claiming that Croatia had so far used little EU money for implementing a sustainable waste management policy.
"It's not clear to us what criteria the government followed to declare the Piškornica project a strategic project," he said, adding that bringing waste from other counties to theirs "cannot and must not be a strategic project."
More news about waste management practices can be found in the Politics section.
