The director of the Fund, Luka Balen, and the minister of environmental protection and green transition, Marija Vučković, together with state secretary Anja Bagarić, presented seven EU grant agreements worth in total EUR 4.4 million.
Under these projects civic amenity sites will be developed, i.e. new ones will be constructed or equipped, or new bring banks will be procured, all under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. These contracts were concluded with cities Velika Gorica, Supetar, Oroslavje, Vrgorac, Kraljevica and the municipalities of Klinča Sela and Seget Donji.
The director of the Fund, Luka Balen, said that a total of 4.8 million euros in grants for 16 projects were approved under the second call for setting up civic amenity sites. Nine contracts have already been handed over to the beneficiaries, while today seven new ones have been awarded.
"The projects contribute to increasing the rate of separately collected municipal waste and reducing the amount of waste that is disposed of in landfills, but in addition to investing in infrastructure, they include educational and information activities for citizens, which is an extremely important link in the system of integrated waste management", explained director Balen, adding that intensive work is being done in Croatia to achieve waste management goals, which is supported by the trend of increasing the number of civic amenity sites, of which there are currently 282, and with projects like this, these numbers are continuously growing.
"To achieve the goals of the Waste Management Plan of the Republic of Croatia for the period 2023 – 2028 as soon as possible, we are continuously co-financing projects for separate collection and sorting, as well as for the recycling of separate and mixed municipal waste. Within the framework of 2 calls under NRRP, we granted a total of EUR 8.3 million for 24 CA sites projects throughout Croatia. Investments in the waste management infrastructure during the mandate of this Government have contributed fine progress in recycling and reduction of municipal waste. Thus, at the end of 2023, the recycling rate was 36%, which represents an increase of 50% compared to 2017, while in the same period, the disposal of municipal waste was reduced from 72% to 52%. Although we have not yet reached the goals, significant progress towards achieving them is visible,” said minister Vučković, congratulating the beneficiaries on having successfully prepared their projects.
