More than 60% citizens satisfied with the quality of work of urban cleaning
Judging by the views of Kragujevac, Niš, Sombor and Varvarin residents, more than 60% of citizens in Serbia are satisfied with the work of city cleaning services in their areas and with the way municipal waste is collected and transported. The best opinion prevails in Sombor, where 82% of respondents positively evaluate these services, along with more than 50% in Niš.
This is the result of research conducted within the project "Glass packaging management in the Western Balkans", in local governments that received more than 600 new containers for disposing of bottles and other glass packaging.
- After plastic, glass is the type of packaging that is most often sorted in households, followed by paper and cardboard packaging, cans and used Tetra Pak packaging. More than half of the citizens who do not recycle point out that they do not have the conditions to do so, i.e. that waste sorting containers are not located near their place of residence. With that in mind, in the first phase of the "Glass Packaging Management" project, we donated 300 recycling containers for glass packaging to the City of Niš, 150 to Sombor, 120 to Kragujevac and 30 to Varvarin. On average, this ensured that we collected as much as 60% more glass packaging than in 2019, which confirms that for a greater degree of recycling, it is first necessary to ensure the conditions, and then to assure the citizens that the waste they sorted will actually end up in recycling, and not in the landfill - says GIZ Project Manager Sanela Mandić Veljkovski.
According to her, in order to establish an effective glass recycling system in Serbia, to begin with, it is necessary to start up the glass processing factory in the country, which had stopped working, and continue with the development of primary selection at the level of households and municipalities, which is just starting.
- It is important to know that we, as citizens who sort packaging waste at home, actually perform primary separation and facilitate the work of employees in recycling centers who perform secondary separation - Mandić Veljkovski points out.
The fact that we are able to produce almost three million tons of municipal waste per year, and that we recycle only 15% of municipal waste, mostly packaging waste, is particularly worrying when we consider that the percentage of recycling in the European Union is much higher - up to 60% - adds Mandić Veljkovski. If we talk exclusively about glass packaging, the EU has set a goal of recycling 75% of glass by 2030, and in Serbia the share amounts to 46%, which is in line with national goals. In Serbia, the prices of garbage disposal services are still at a minimal level - around five euros, which is four times less than in Slovenia and almost 10 times less than what citizens of Austria pay. In order to have an organized recycling system, 63% of respondents state that they are ready to pay a higher price for efficient disposal of waste.
Citizens would also be more motivated to separate waste with the introduction of incentives in the form of discounts for the next purchase or for utility bills, or a system of refunds for returned packaging. On the other hand, a third of respondents believe that additional measures are not necessary, because the desire to protect the environment should be the main motive.
The citizens' opinions survey was carried out within the project "Glass packaging management in the Western Balkans", which was initiated by the German development cooperation implemented by GIZ, together with packaging waste operators - companies Sekopak, Pakomak and Ekopak. The project was implemented by NALED in Serbia, the Regional Development Agency of Herzegovina (REDAH) in BiH and the Union of Local Government Units (ZELS) in North Macedonia.
