Waste Collection Systems Are Slowly Transforming into Sorting Systems

Although it seems that there is more garbage than ever in the Croatian metropolis, in other areas, the transition from collection systems to sorting systems is currently underway. The ultimate goal would not only be recycling but also the development of some innovative plans on how to smartly utilize and reuse waste in Croatia.

Some local communities have gone further in recycling and reusing quality waste, while others lag behind, but judging by the announcements from city officials and directors of municipal companies, this year we can expect quite a few new composting facilities, sorting stations, and recycling yards. For example, Hvar cannot think about recycling without such a project.

Door-to-Door

The collection business is mostly handled by local municipal companies owned by the city, most often called Čistoća or Komunalac. For example, in the area of the city of Rijeka and the Rijeka ring, waste is collected by the municipal company Čistoća, in containers for separate collection of paper and cardboard, plastic, metal, and multilayer packaging, as well as containers for disposing of residual (mixed) municipal waste.

Rijeka has a developed system of containers for textiles, edible oil, and glass. As stated by the spokesperson for the City of Rijeka Iva Balen, the establishment of an individual waste management system, or a ‘door-to-door’ system, is underway, which already exists in other cities and in some Rijeka municipalities. According to the data from the City of Rijeka for 2021, the rate of separately collected valuable types of waste was 22 percent; however, with the introduction of the individual system, preliminary data for 2022 show a significant increase in separated waste, so the rate will further increase next year.

The largest collected quantity by type of waste is paper and cardboard (25 percent), followed by plastic and plastic packaging (15 percent), wood (furniture and other wooden household items) with a 25 percent share, and green waste from yards and gardens, which constitutes about 15 percent of the separately collected waste. The Rijeka Čistoća is very proud of Riperaj, a place where citizens can repair defective small household appliances, broken and damaged furniture, clothing, toys, and similar items for free with the help of craftsmen who possess the necessary knowledge and skills.

– Riperaj is the first such project in Croatia, and its primary goal is to reduce the amount of waste by allowing damaged or defective everyday items to be reused with minor repairs. Additionally, the concept enables the active involvement of interested professionals from various fields who possess the necessary knowledge and skills, with the added value of direct interaction among interested users.

Yard Corner

Part of the furniture used in Riperaj is newly refurbished furniture from the recycling yard, says Balen. There are plans to open a Waste Reuse Center (CPU), which will be an upgrade to Riperaj, aimed at encouraging responsible behavior towards the environment by collecting, refurbishing, and repairing furniture and consumer goods so that they can be reintroduced to the market in the local community at affordable prices.

In the City of Gospić, where the municipal company Komunalac collects waste ‘door-to-door’, the introduction of a volume-based waste collection fee system is underway. It will be operational by the end of the year, and with the help of chips and RFID readers, the number of emptying of containers for each household will be recorded on a monthly basis.

Currently, only paper and plastic are separated in Gospić, and the share of separated waste is only four percent, which is data from May this year when the containers were distributed. Currently, waste is not being reused in Gospić, but by the end of the year, a recycling yard with a reuse corner should be operational, for which the necessary equipment has been procured. Additional containers for glass are also being procured, as well as a project for building a recycling yard for construction waste.

In Osijek, work on the primary waste selection system began back in 2010 and is based on the separate collection of usable waste materials at the source of waste generation. It has been observed that the established eco-islands often become illegal dumps, which is why the waste management system began to be improved and refined. Last year, Osijek had a total of 29,255 tons of municipal waste, of which 14,066 tons was mixed municipal waste, and 15,189 tons was separately collected waste.

Incentives Are Also Being Distributed

The largest share in the composition of municipal waste in Osijek is bio-waste, with 8,450 tons collected last year. All bio-waste is transported to a composting facility where it is processed and produces first-class compost. Osijek is one of the few cities in Croatia with a built composting facility and an established comprehensive system for collecting and disposing of bio-waste, and plans are in place for the construction of a facility for processing bulky waste and upgrading the technological process for processing bio-waste for the purpose of treating and disposing of sludge from wastewater treatment plants.

Another Komunalac collects waste in Bjelovar, where 12,891 tons of waste were collected this year, and there is a constant increase in separately collected components, both in that city and in the surrounding municipalities, where 1,700 tons of recyclable waste were collected last year.

Paper is handed over to authorized recyclers, as well as plastic, packaging glass and flat glass, for new products, as well as textiles, electronic waste, iron, and tires. Wood is used for producing particleboard, and construction waste is crushed and ground by recyclers for road filling. For more than a year, Bjelovar has been working on a project to build a sorting facility worth about 45 million kuna, which, like the composting facility, should be completed by the end of the year, after which the facility will be equipped and citizens will be further educated.

In Varaždin, there is also an incentive system for separating and composting waste, so users who have their own composter do not have to use brown containers for bio-waste, while those who do not use it receive a discount of 16.71 kuna plus VAT.

Negative Balance

According to the current model of sorting at the household threshold of all key recyclable components of municipal waste, last year in Varaždin, the percentage of recyclable bio-waste was as high as 43.61 percent of the total waste. Despite such results, they say in Varaždin that they are not completely satisfied because a large amount of recyclable waste still ends up in black containers for mixed municipal waste.

It is estimated that in 6,832.22 tons of mixed municipal waste, there are 4,409.14 tons of recyclable materials (paper, plastic, metal, bio-waste, clothing, textiles, etc.), meaning that mixed municipal waste should be at most 2,423.08 tons or about 20 percent of the total amount of municipal waste.

– Waste reuse is high in the waste management hierarchy, right after waste avoidance. Unfortunately, the situation in practice, when it comes to reuse, is far from desired. The municipal waste collected in the Varaždin area mostly, or 56.39 percent or 6,832.22 tons, ends up in non-hazardous waste landfills. Recyclable waste such as paper and metal is sold to a lesser extent, while most of it is paid for its collection, e.g., for bio-waste, plastic, multilayer packaging, clothing, and textiles.

The balance of income from the sale/payment for the collection of recyclable waste is negative. We pay much more for the collection of bio-waste, plastic, multilayer packaging, clothing, and textiles than we earn from the sale of paper and metal, emphasized Zoran Svetec, director of Varaždin’s Čistoća, announcing some changes in the municipal waste collection system – the procurement of semi-underground containers for multi-apartment buildings and new vehicles, while a sorting facility for recyclable waste is also being built, where waste collected from users will be sorted separately.

Ecologically Aware

The Koprivnica model of collection is a model with waste containers that are collected at the household threshold, also with the possibility of using containers in public areas (green islands). Citizens are also allowed to use recycling yards, composting facilities, and recycling yards for construction waste.

The president of the management of Koprivnica’s Komunalac, Nataša Tetec, says that citizens have relatively quickly accepted the new method of separate waste collection, which is evident in the results, making Koprivnica today the second city in Croatia in terms of separate waste collection. Komunalac began educational activities several years ago among people of all ages, so the success in waste sorting has also been achieved thanks to the habits of ecologically aware citizens.

– All separately collected recyclable waste in Koprivnica is given for recycling to authorized collectors. More than 40 percent of recyclable waste is extracted from bulky waste, which is then further recycled. Bio-waste is processed in a composting facility built in 2011 and upgraded in 2021, and today 9,000 tons of bio-waste are processed, resulting in quality compost DomKo, which citizens use in agricultural production and for maintaining the city’s green areas. Construction waste is collected in the recycling yard for that type of waste, where processing results in construction aggregate that is further used in building embankments and renewing surrounding paths, explains Tetec.

We were unable to find out what the further plans and innovative solutions for waste reuse are in the City of Zagreb, where until recently, the most discussion was held on the topic of waste collection and disposal, as we did not receive responses from them. For now, waste in that city is still discussed in the context of blue bags.