In winter, particularly when strong southern winds blow, sea currents bring garbage from Albania along the coast of Montenegro to Croatia's southern Adriatic areas, which is an important environmental issue raised also in bilateral and multilateral meetings.

Therefore during a recent Adriatic-Ionian Forum in Tirana, reporters asked Albanian Tourism and Environment Minister Mirela Kumbaro about his topic, and on that occasion she said that sea pollution was a very important topic and she promised to provide answers in greater detail by e-mail.

A month after the forum, Minister Kumbaro said in her response that she had already taken some concrete steps in prevention of sea pollution which is also damaging to Albania and its burgeoning tourism industry.

She said that she had initiated a national clean-up plan and campaigns as well as the campaigns for raising awareness about this issue.

She also mentioned plans for investing into landfills and their rehabilitation.

Four years ago, Albania, with the support of the Swiss government, started identifying all the landfills near its coast and rated them in compliance with its national legislation.

The next step was to start relocating waste and to manage waste appropriately.

The Albanian government provides financial support to local authorities in these efforts, says Minister Kumbaro.

The supervision of waste management has been also stepped up.

On 1 June, a ban on the use of plastic bags entered into force in Albania.

Croatian MEP writes to EC about plastic waste in the Adriatic Sea coming from Albania

In early February, a Croatian member of the European Parliament, Karlo Ressler, sent a letter to the European Commission about plastic waste in the Adriatic Sea coming from Albania.

More that 90% of plastic waste and other types of waste come to Croatia’s coast from the south, notably from Albania, this HDZ/EPP representative says.

Over 229,000 tonnes of plastics end up in the Mediterranean annually, and the sea currents and relatively shallow sea make Croatia exposed to plastic waste from the Mediterranean. More than a decade ago, Albania’s government announced an investigation into plastic pollution coming from Albania to Croatia, however, there have been no results, said the MEP.

In his capacity as a member of the delegation to the EU-Albania Stabilisation and Association Parliamentary Committee, Ressler asked the EC to find ways to intervene through European programmes of environmental protection and Albania’s accession negotiations to address this matter.