Waste plan prods local authorities

Ambitious scheme suspends all projects in works, aims to radically boost recycling

Alternate Environment Minister Yiannis Tsironis yesterday unveiled a new national plan for waste management which aims to radically reduce the amount of trash going to landfills and puts the onus on local authorities to recycle their waste.

The plan, which has been revised after several weeks of public consultation, basically cancels all tenders that had been issued for waste management projects on mainland Greece. They will be replaced by alternative projects with a greater emphasis on reducing the production of waste through recycling and composting.

The new projects, which must be finalized by the end of September, can be public-private partnerships as long as they are compatible with the provisions of the national plan.

The scheme is ambitious for Greece, which has long lagged its European Union peers in waste management, particularly due to a poor record in recycling. It aims to boost the recycling of glass, paper, metal and plastic so that, by 2020, a total of 65 percent of the total volume of discarded waste is recycled.

Unveiling the plan yesterday, Tsironis declared that it “marks a turning point from the policies fol- lowed by successive governments of the past decade at least and leads us toward an economy and a society with zero waste, which will make money out of its waste.

“Adopting European Union waste management legislation... and making full use of secured funding for all the necessary infrastructure and actions will be the first step away from a Medieval-type uncontrolled disposal of waste,” he said.