Education of BiH civil servants in waste management kicks off

The first workshop within the Capacity building programme for long-term sustainable waste management in Bosnia and Herzegovina was held in Sarajevo, with the presence of the Minister of Environmental Protection and Tourism of Federation BiH Edita Đapo.

Representatives of utility companies and environmental institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina participated at the first educational workshop organized with the aim to educate stakeholders to more efficiently manage waste and run regional landfills and to reach higher percentage of waste being turned into resources, according to the FBiH government press release.

“Federal waste management strategy envisages 10 regional landfills whereas only four have been built. We identified there is a strong need for capacity building and training of local staff to manage regional landfills, which do not serve just for depositing waste, since the waste has to be separated and recycled,” said Đapo.

Head of the Section for environmental protection in the BiH Ministry of foreign trade and economic relations, Senad Oprašić, said that waste management in BiH has seen improvement, but the process is slow because it requires more funds. He expressed gratitude to the World Bank, the Embassy of Sweden and the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA).

Sweden contributed with EUR 2 million technical assistance for the waste collection. The workshop was organized by the World Bank with the support of the Embassy of Sweden and the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), under the patronage of the Federal Ministry of Environmental Protection and Tourism.

Bosnia and Herzegovina was the lowest ranked country in the region according to the amount of recycled solid municipal waste  in 2014, according to the study by the European Environmental Agency (EEA).