Zagreb Mayor Tomislav Tomasevic was met on Friday by protesters from the Environmental Protection Association Resnik (UZOR) at the Zitnjak recycling yard, where he was presenting an educational and informational project for children called "Separating waste, adopting habits".

The protesters held banners saying that Tomasevic continued the projects of former mayor Milan Bandic and accused him of treason because he used to fight with them against that.

Tomasevic said they were not on opposite sides and that they had fought against a waste incineration plant which had not been and would not be built.

An activist said that they had been asking for him to receive them since 17 July, but that he had not spared them, who used to be his most loyal support in the fight for a better Zagreb, a mere half-hour.

Waste sorting plant shouldn’t be bone of contention

Asked where mixed municipal waste, which will remain after the separation of waste, would be disposed of after Jakusevac is closed, Tomasevic said that the treatment of mixed waste was the last stage in the waste management system.

“The treatment of mixed waste is the final stage, the last project, the last plant – in terms of location and technology,” he said, adding that a new system was being introduced after decades of citizens paying flat rate charges for waste collection services, regardless of how much they separated waste.

“For the first time, those who don’t separate waste will be paying more, and it is key that there is an infrastructure for what citizens do separate, that the separated waste can be additionally sorted for sale,” Tomasevic underscored.

He thinks that other facilities, such as a waste sorting plant where the waste which citizens had already separated in their containers is sorted, should not be a bone of contention. For example, plastics can be sorted there so that it could be sold because currently the City is paying over 1,500 kuna per tonne to private companies for the disposal of plastics.

The largest amount of biowaste is already being treated within a composting facility owned by Zrinjevac; however, its capacity is not sufficient given the quantities expected once the new payment system enters into force.

In Zagreb’s Zitnjak district, in Resnik, there is a central wastewater treatment plant, and near it, on the site of the former factory Dioki, a waste sorting plant is supposed to be built.

Former city authorities were planning to build a waste management centre in Resnik.