Citizens, environmental activists, MPs, react to an article of the waste management bills, which will enables the import of waste that will be used as fuel, reports “Deutsche Welle”.

Last year, the legal changes banned it, but now it has been reopened with a “European flag” procedure, in order to harmonize the regulations in this area with European directives. The law is in the first reading in the Parliament, and the MP and the leader of the Green Party DOM, Maja Moracanin, is preparing an amendment that will ask for the current solution to be valid – a ban on the import of waste that will be used as fuel. She explains the reason for that in an interview with DW.

Last year, with legal changes, such a possibility was prohibited, but now it is reopened with a “European flag”, in order to harmonize the regulations in this area with European directives. The law is in the first reading in the parliament, and the MP and chairwoman of the Green Party DOM, Maja Moracanin, is preparing an amendment that will ask for the current solution to be valid – a ban on the import of waste that will be used as energy. In a conversation with DW, she explains the reason for that.

The problem is that in the country we have neither established institutional mechanisms nor an accredited laboratory that will examine everything contained in the waste that would be used as fuel. It is not enough to examine just one parameter, but all. We do not have such a possibility. What is written in the declarations is often not confirmed in practice and many cases in the region have shown that there are major abuses. Until effective control of imported waste is ensured, there is no need to endanger and take potential risks to endanger air, water and soil. Therefore, we must first ensure effective control in which we will all have trust, she says.

She reminds that the country has ratified the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary. Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal which aims, among other things, to protect less developed countries from the import of hazardous waste from which economically more developed countries want to get rid of.