The streets of Zagreb are filling with garbage, and the new contract between the city-owned Čistoća utility and the CIOS waste management company has not yet been signed. Zagreb is slowly suffocating in uncollected garbage, reports 24sata.hr on November 5, 2018.
The residents of neighbourhoods of Trešnjevka, Kruge, Maksimir, Trnsko, Špansko, Savica and many others report their buildings being surrounded with containers full of garbage. Čistoća, the city-owned company which is supposed to collect the garbage, says they do collect garbage regularly, but that the growing problem is plastic waste, which is a global problem that has now affected Zagreb as well.
CIOS is the company in charge of the plastic waste. At least it was before the contract expired. CIOS recently said they had fulfilled their obligations and taken the agreed amount of waste. However, the new contract between CIOS and Čistoća has not yet been signed, and the negotiations are still under way. It seems that the garbage collection will have to wait until the new contract is signed.
However, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to garbage problems in Zagreb. This year, the Waste Management Plan was adopted, but just so that the city could nominate project to EU funds for grants for purchasing cans, trucks and other equipment. The construction of the Waste Management Centre in Resnik has been announced. The project will cost 300 million kuna, but it will not be finished any time soon.
It is no wonder then that, according to Eurostat data, Zagreb has become the European garbage capital, since just 1% of waste is recycled. According to the plan, citizens should separate waste at home, but Zagreb and Croatia are on the verge of failing to meet the EU recycling standard according to which they should recycle 50 percent of waste by 2020 and 70 percent by 2030.
While Zagreb is suffocating in garbage, Mayor Milan Bandić is on an official visit to Moscow, where Russian President Vladimir Putin has presented him with a decoration for promoting relations between Croatia and Russia.
If you want to read more about Mayor Bandić, click here.
Translated from 24sata.hr
