Zagreb Mayor Tomislav Tomasevic on Monday presented a feasibility study for a waste management centre for the city of Zagreb, noting that one should investigate the capacity of other counties for the disposal of municipal waste from Zagreb until the new centre is built in 2028.

“As I announced at the end of last year, we will no longer wait for anyone. It is high time we started dealing with this problem,” Tomasevic told a news conference, presenting the feasibility study, to be discussed by the City Assembly on 25 January.

The study, made by the Ekonerg company, envisages three technologies for the hybrid plant for the mechanical and biological processing of waste. The plant will process mixed waste and sort dry recyclables (paper, metal and plastics) as well as process biowaste.

City willing to finance €140 mn investment on its own

The investment is estimated at €140 million, and Tomasevic said that the study was made to meet EU financing requirements but that the city, if the process of EU co-funding slowed the project, was ready to finance the construction of the centre on its own.

“Each of the three models proposed by the study is sufficient to close down (the city landfill) Jakusevec after more than three decades… If there is no obstruction – and we will publicly expose anyone doing it – we can build this facility and put it into operation in 2028,” Tomasevic said, adding that a decision to that effect should have been made a long time ago.

“But nobody had the courage and was responsible enough to do it. Let’s not talk about the promises made by the former mayor and city government, this was a responsibility of the state, to close down Jakusevec by 2018,” he recalled.

Situation with Jakusevec uncertain

However, until the end of 2028, when the city waste management centre is to be put into operation, it is not certain what will happen with the city landfill of Jakusevec, Tomasevic said, warning that it should be closed as soon as possible, notably considering the second garbage landslide of 4 December.

It is a question how long the remediation of the landfill will last and how much it will cost, but it will definitely be a demanding process, he said.

He noted that, due to the situation with Jakusevec, and in an attempt to find a solution, two meetings were held with representatives of Zagreb County and the town of Zapresic, with which, under the National Waste Management Plan, the City of Zagreb is to share the new waste management centre.

“Considering that the future waste management centre in (the Zagreb neighbourhood of) Resnik should be processing municipal waste from Zagreb County in the next 30 years, we proposed that in the next four years waste from Zagreb should be disposed of in Zapresic and that in return, the county itself need not invest in the Resnik centre,” said Tomasevic, adding that representatives of Zagreb County said the county lacked the necessary capacity, namely that it was much smaller than stated in the National Waste Management Plan, which he called “absurd.”

“If representatives of the county authorities were telling the truth, then the national waste management plan is a completely unfeasible document. I am asking the government and the competent ministry to determine the actual capacity for the disposal of mixed municipal waste in Zagreb County,” Tomasevic said.

Offer to Zagreb County fair

He said that he considered the offer to Zagreb County fair, noting that if it turned out that the county did have the capacity for waste from Zagreb but acted unconstructively, “it will define the price of services” of the new waste management centre for the residents of Zagreb County.

The mayor appealed for “closing down Jakusevec as soon as possible, considering the two latest garbage landslides” and called on the government, the Economy Ministry and Zagreb County to investigate the capacity of other landfills in the country to take in mixed municipal waste from Zagreb until the new waste management centre was built.