Bandić expects the Zagreb Assembly to accept his waste management plan

Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandić expects that the representatives at the City Assembly meeting on Thursday will accept his proposal for the Waste Management Plan of the City of Zagreb.

“It will pass at the City Assembly meeting,” Bandić said on Wednesday at a press conference ahead of tomorrow’s session. He believes that he will receive support for this plan from the coalition partners HDZ and Independents for Croatia.

When asked how he comments on the fact that city representative of Independents for Croatia Zlatko Hasanbegović announced that he would not support this plan, Bandić replied that Hasanbegović will change his mind.

>>> Citizens protested against waste storage in the former Podsused cement factory

“Do not believe everything Hasanbegović says, and do not believe everything I say. Do not take it for granted… Only a fool does not change his mind when a higher interest is at stake. And that is why I hope that many will change their minds and have only one – and that is how to solve the problem,” said Bandić. He expects responsibility and correctness from coalition partners to adopt this plan as soon as possible because it is a prerequisite for moving forward, just as separate waste collection is a prerequisite for solving that problem. “Waste is business; we just have to understand it like in Zurich and Geneva,” Bandić said.

He emphasized that the City has completed two-thirds of the work related to waste management – they have rehabilitated the Jakuševec landfill and built a wastewater treatment plant, and the remaining task is to build the third component – a waste management center.

Assessing how difficult it is to change habits that have been formed over 60 years, he urged the citizens of Zagreb to separate their waste. Bandić stated that around 35 to 38 percent of waste is already separated in Zagreb, not one percent as the data has shown. He said that they in the City, together with the Environmental Protection Fund and their own financial resources, must ensure enough ecological infrastructure because – the sooner they do it and people understand it – the sooner they will solve the problem.

>>> City representatives: Zagreb ‘stands still’ because it has neither a waste management plan nor a strategy

“Tell me one city in Croatia that produces three megawatts of electricity from its waste landfill. Is there one in Croatia? No. (…) And after 16 basins at the treatment plant, the water flows as clear as a mountain tear and heads towards Belgrade. Well, those in Belgrade should thank us considering that we now have some artificial crisis, so we do not send Zagreb’s sewage to Belgrade and the Black Sea. You know how much we have preserved that drain – that is a historical story,” said the Zagreb mayor.

On the agenda of the City Assembly on Thursday will also be Bandić’s proposal for a conclusion on the acceptance of the strategic partnership model for launching production at the Immunological Institute between the City of Zagreb and the Government of the Republic of Croatia.

When asked how he comments on the fact that the president of the City Council club GLAS and HSU Anka Mrak-Taritaš asked whether the City of Zagreb would “enter” Borovo in this way, Bandić replied that he would not comment on that because it is otherwise “God and the hatter.”

>>> Ćorić expects Croatia to have seven more waste management centers by 2023

“Otherwise, if it weren’t for the City and Mayor Bandić, the Immunological Institute would not have been saved,” Bandić said.

He stated that since 2013, they have written to the government of the former prime minister, and not only did they not receive a response, but they were called populists. “Thank God that in the last six months in negotiations between the Government and the City, or the joint commission (…), the result of that has borne fruit so that we go to the Assembly with a proposal for a conclusion on the acceptance of the strategic partnership model for launching production at the Immunological Institute between the City of Zagreb and the Government of the Republic of Croatia,” added Bandić.

When asked how he comments on the fact that for the fourth time his proposal to reduce the salaries of department heads, special senior advisors to the mayor, and senior advisors to the president of the City Assembly will be on the agenda, this time by six percent, and his coalition partners announce that they will not support it again, Bandić replied that he would continue to send that proposal to the City Assembly meeting.

>>> The City of Zagreb will finance the Immunological Institute with 110 million kuna, production is being launched

“I will go until we reach zero. And my conscience is clear. If someone does not understand something, who has a salary of 15,000 or 20,000 kuna, that those who have two and a half thousand or three thousand kuna should at least partially enter their skin, and they do not understand that, I cannot help. But I can – my proposal is precisely in that direction – to distribute the burden of the crisis as evenly as possible and for those who have more to give something, while those who have less can more easily get through what they have less of,” said Bandić.

Our people, he continued, are often disappointed not only because we have inefficient authorities at various levels, including the state level, but also because we do not share and do not correspond with the time and the moment of life of the ordinary person.

“A person will more easily get through the crisis when they see that people at least gesture, even in this matter, show that they want to enter the skin of those who live very hard,” said the Zagreb mayor and added that he cannot persuade city representatives from other parties to vote for his proposal because not everyone has social sensitivity. “It is also about their skin. It is hard for people to give up 1,500 kuna; 200 euros is welcome. People are just people,” he added.

>>> The Office of the President has made available 700,000 square meters of Pantovčak forest to Zagreb

When asked how he comments on the fact that citizens will gather for a protest tonight at the Meštrović Pavilion due to the works, Bandić replied that people should gather, as it is democracy.

“Someone protests, and someone works,” said Bandić, convinced that with this project they are doing good for this city because they are “washing and renewing” something that has not been renewed for 50 years.

“It will be more beautiful than Bandić’s fountains,” he concluded.