Ljubljana, 25 September 2003. Slovenian NGOs Umanotera and Dea Club today notify the Ministry of Environment, Spatial Planning and Energy (MoE) about the international support they have secured towards an incineration-free waste strategy that conserves resources and protects the environment. The NGOs drew the attention of the MoE to the endorsement made by more than 70 public interest groups and individuals backing bolder waste prevention, reduction and recycling measures and a cessation on all types of waste incineration in Slovenia. Led by the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (www.no-burn.org), the endorsers from 31 countries joined their counterparts in Slovenia in seeking healthy and sustainable solutions for managing discards.

The Slovenian NGOs have earlier put forward several recommendations to improve the MoE’s “Draft Operational Programme on Waste Disposal with Strategy on Reduction of Biodegradable Waste to Landfill, 2003-2008” (OP). The strategic guidelines on waste management in Slovenia, published in 1996, are primarily orientated on waste disposal and leans on incineration as the “most efficient” method. Current waste management programmes and systems are based on these guidelines, ignoring proven alternatives to waste disposal and incineration that do not pollute the environment and create much needed jobs, while decreasing the use of often non-renewable natural resources.

“For years, NGOs have cautioned policy makers that waste incinerators are a source of several negative impacts to environment and human health, and that incineration is incompatible with strategies aimed at higher resource efficiency. The Ministry continually rejects those warnings, arguing that studies are based on obsolete waste incineration technologies. This position of the Ministry probably explains why Slovenia still has no study on dioxin levels in the environment and the human body. Slovenia signed, but not yet ratified, the Stockholm Convention. The Convention requires parties to take measures to reduce the total releases derived from anthropogenic sources of unintentional Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). The Treaty applies to 12 pollutants; waste incinerators are significant sources for four of them”, said Maja Bavdaz Solce, Chairperson, Dea Club.

“Insisting on building the two waste incinerators in Kidricevo and Trbovlje is a direct attack on the efforts of local communities and other stakeholders in the waste management chain that are working for efficient waste segregation and recycling in Slovenia. If plans push through, more than 50% of all waste resource will be sent to these equipment for mass resource destruction for the following 20 – 25 years”, added Erika Oblak, Managing Director, Umanotera.

Umanotera and Dea Club developed these nine recommendations towards a sustainable waste strategy in Slovenia:

• OP should aim for 80% waste diversion from landfills by 2015. For that period, the moratorium on all types of waste incineration has to be enforced.

• OP should include measures and targets with timetable directed at increasing the volume of all separately collected materials, with special emphasis on the toxic fraction of waste.

• OP should strive for a completed study on dioxin levels in the environment and the human body by the end of 2004.

• OP should include the evaluation of the potential social impacts of waste incineration to affected regions, and consider appropriate compensation since these regions are taking the environmental risks.

• OP should incorporate a detailed plan to establish an open dialogue with all interested stakeholders on different waste management options. It should not promote only the option that the most powerful stakeholder considers as adequate.

• OP should contain a proposal to integrate extended producer responsibility into Slovenian waste management legislation.

• OP, when evaluating the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, should consider all greenhouse gases and the impact of different waste management options.

• OP, when discussing the impact of waste incineration on the energy production, should conduct an exact evaluation of the energy produced and energy lost from burning waste, and should further take into account the entire life-cycle of products and/or their packaging,

• OP should estimate possibilities of decreasing the biodegradable waste to landfill by:

Promoting intensive segregation of biodegradable waste at source,
Introducing backyard composting,
Building small local composting facilities,
Initiating other innovative non-combustion treatment technologies for biodegradable waste.
Supporting information and education programmes for local communities and households.

For more information, please contact Erika Oblak or visit the Umanotera website at http://www.umanotera.org