ZAGREB, 5 February, 2021 - Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development Tomislav Ćorić said in Pula on Friday, after meeting with county and city authorities, that in the past ten years Istria County has made a step forward in waste management and that it is the direction the rest of Croatia should take.
"Building a county waste management centre, despite the challenges that it presented for some time, was from our perspective a huge job done by Istria County. In the past few years we have been dedicated primarily to constructing these lower parts of the infrastructure, which entails building recycling yards, financing sorting facilities, containers and lorries for special waste categories, an entire infrastructure that helps make this system successful," Ćorić told reporters, adding that "that path is challenging and will last from some time yet."
He said that he had an opportunity today to discuss the challenges facing local government in Istria in achieving waste management plans that were designed four years ago.
Ćorić said that today's talks on the functioning of the Kaštijun waste management plant, related to local government allowances, were very constructive and that he is convinced that Istria County and Pula were exemplary of how things should be.
Responding to reporters' questions about handling Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF), Ćorić underscored that the government had decided to cofinance the handling of SRF from the Kaštijun area through the Environment Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund in an effort to facilitate Kaštijun's financial position as a legal entity. On the other hand, he said, the long-term plan is for the state to create premises that would be used to handle SRF.
"That is still going on to this day in several cement factories around Croatia, however that problem needs to be resolved at the state level, because in the case of cement factories we are talking about market competition which could be very expensive for waste management centres like Kaštijun or Marinščina," said Ćorić.
