Project final conference was held: “Put the right thing in the right place”

December 2, 2020 - Thanks to investments in the establishment of an efficient waste management system and educational and information activities, the city of Zagreb has established an upward trend in the amount of separately collected waste, while reducing the amount of waste disposed of in landfills. This was pointed out, among other things, at the final conference of the project: Put the right thing in the right place, held on Wednesday, December 2 in the Congress Hall of the Zagreb Fair.

The project “Put the right thing in the right place” is a program of educational and informative activities on sustainable waste management of the City of Zagreb, which have been implemented since the beginning of 2019. The project is co-financed by the EU under the Operational Program “Competitiveness and Cohesion”. The value of the project is HRK 4.95 million, of which HRK 3.6 million are grants.

As part of the project, a number of activities were carried out in which, in addition to the City of Zagreb and Zagreb Holding, a large number of kindergartens, schools, employees were involved, and included various events, educational games, workshops, promo leaflets.

The activities were primarily aimed at sensitization the citizens of Zagreb about the importance of changing their own habits, ie increasing the level of awareness of the need for their personal contribution and informing them in which ways they can be more engaged and involved in the process of separate waste collection.

The positive trend in waste management continues
As pointed out by Mirka Jozić, head of the City Office for Economy, Energy and Environmental Protection, thanks to all activities, Zagreb can boast of a reduced amount of disposed waste by 15 percent compared to last year.

“About 170,000 tons will be disposed of this year, while 200,000 tons were disposed of last year. Also, last year there was 7,25 percent less disposed waste compared to 2018, which means we have a positive trend – while the amount of landfilled waste decreases, the amount of separated waste increases significantly. We hope that the city of Zagreb will fulfill its obligation under the European directive, and this will be very important for the Republic of Croatia to fulfill its obligation to the European Union. We have a good chance that we will fulfill all commitments, and enter the circle of European Community countries that have achieved the set goals.”



The President of the Management Board of Zagreb Holding, Ana Stojić Deban, pointed out that every activity on the project was a great challenge because it was not easy to influence the acquired, long-term habits of individuals and society as a whole.

“The result, in addition to being extremely valuable in the context of overall responsibility, is becoming very measurable today. All this includes our investments in operational processes and infrastructure. In the City of Zagreb, we have provided containers for separate waste collection on the doorstep, which is increased by 89 percent (to 185,299 pieces). Next to containers for mixed municipal waste, there are also containers for paper, plastic and metal packaging for which citizens receive yellow bags and bags and containers for bio-waste. across all city districts and local councils. Through the infrastructure, we have provided about 700 green islands in all city districts and local councils. We also have 11 fixed and 8 mobile recycling yards. All of this has resulted in smaller amounts of landfilled mixed municipal waste.”

Siniša Kukić, Director of the Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund, and Mile Horvat, State Secretary of the Ministry of the Economy and Sustainable Development, also addressed the audience at the Conference.

After the opening and welcome speeches, a “Panel - Past, present and future of waste management in the city of Zagreb” was held.