A meeting of the Alliance for environmental protection was held

Members of the Alliance for Environmental Protection gathered on February 27th for their first regular annual meeting, during which a discussion was held to define the topics for collaboration with the new Government of the Republic of Serbia, as well as to establish the alliance's work priorities for this year.

Bojana Perić, the president of the Alliance for Environmental Protection, presented the members with the report on the alliance's activities for the previous year, which was adopted after it was noted that there were no additional comments or suggestions.

Recall that at the end of February, a meeting was held with the Minister of Environmental Protection, emphasizing the importance of continued cooperation between the two institutions. As priority topics for collaboration with the new government, members highlighted the issues of waste management and environmental fees. Within the waste management topic, in addition to municipal and packaging waste, special attention will be given to the management of specific waste streams, focusing on hazardous waste.

The focus will also be on the regulatory aspects related to the cessation of waste status as a key document for establishing a circular economy. Regarding the topic of fees, members of the Alliance agreed that the current environmental fee system does not fully reflect the "polluter pays" principle and that there is room for improvement. Therefore, the proposal is to activate a sub-group for fees within the Environmental Protection Alliance.

During the meeting, in the section on presenting members' activities, Educons University, from the Faculty of Environmental Protection, presented the "GREENLand – Microplastic – Free Environment" project, concluding that further research on microplastics ending up in the environment is needed, as well as standardization of assessment methods.

The mentioned topics of the meeting represent only a part of all the processes expected to be implemented in 2024, and members of the Alliance are invited to actively participate and contribute as they have done so far.