THE PROJECT FOR HOUSEHOLD WASTE SEPARATION "O-DVA-JA-MO" WAS LAUNCHED IN BABUSNICA

The municipality of Babušnica, in cooperation with the PUC "Komunalac" and the Pirot Regional Landfill, organized on November 8th in the city park in Babušnica the promotion of the Project for Household Waste Separation "O-DVA-JA-MO".

The project was launched by the Ministry of Environmental Protection with the support of the European Union and the Kingdom of Sweden, and the goal of the project is to establish a system for separating waste at the point of origin, for its later successful recycling and reducing the amount of waste that ends up in landfills. This project covers 17 cities and municipalities in Serbia in four regions, and Babušnica is one of them.

"Today we are promoting a very important project, the beginning of waste separation in our municipality. It is an IPA 2017 project donated by the European Union in cooperation with the Kingdom of Sweden and the Ministry of Environmental Protection. This means that we will finally start sorting waste in the right way, because the goal of the project itself is to separate, recycle and reuse as much waste as possible, while the smallest amount of communal waste ends up in the regional landfill. Both fellow citizens and the municipality will get a cleaner and healthier environment. We all owe a big thank you to the public utility company that works hard every day to remove waste and remove illegal landfills. They were facing one serios drawback, until this year they had operated with only one truck, and this year the Babušnica municipality received three new garbage trucks, two from donations and one purchased from the budget of the Babušnica municipality," said Ivana Stojčić, president of the Babušnica municipality.

The promotion of the Project "O-DVA-JA-MO" in Babušnica was also attended by the director of the Pirot Regional Landfill.

"Since 2017, when we signed up for that project, we had the intention to, through primary selection at the place where the waste is generated, try to separate secondary raw materials and that these secondary raw materials - plastic, paper, cardboard and everything else - do not end up in the body of the landfill , they don't end up on the street and they don't end up in the canal, but they end up in the recycling industry, on our secondary separation line where a finished product comes out that has a certain market value and is marketed in the recycling industry. I am happy that today we are witnessing that Babušnica is starting to implement that project, the effect of which we will see in its full capacity next year," said Nebojša Ivanov, director of the Pirot Regional Landfill.

In his statement, Marko Stanisavljević, director of the "Komunalac" Public Utility Company of Babušnica, underlined that the project means a lot for this municipality, that Babušnica will benefit from it in two ways, on the one hand, less garbage will end up at the landfill and the waste will go to the recycling industry and will get additional use value, and on the other hand, work will be done on environmental protection, there will be fewer illegal landfills in Babušnica and the surrounding villages, and he hopes that this project will only continue to grow year after year.

The event in Babusnica was also attended by the creator of this project and the manager of the EISP2 program, John Glazebrook.

"Although the focus is actually on recycling and the introduction of these blue bins, the primary focus is actually the improvement of waste management in Serbia. I absolutely believe that it is possible and that Serbia can recycle waste in a way that any country in the European Union does, maybe even better. This system that is now being introduced in Babušnica is very similar to what is done in France, or Germany or the Czech Republic, in any country of the European Union. And also, the first results we have regarding the recycled waste from Pirot, Čajetina show that the quality of the waste is at the European level. I am very much looking forward to this project and I congratulate Babušnica on the start of the implementation of this project," said Mr. Glazebrook.

The event ended with the awarding of prizes to the best students and preschoolers at the literary and art competition, which was announced on the occasion of the start of the implementation of this project by Despot Stefan Lazarevic Elementary School and Dečja radost, in cooperation with the Babušnica Youth Office. The awards were presented by the director of PUK "Komunalac" Babušnica Marko Stanisavljević.

The Project for Household Waste Separation in 4 regions "O-DVA-JA-MO" is implemented in all four municipalities of the Pirot district, and as part of it, Babušnica received a modern truck for the transport of recycling waste, 28 containers and 1348 bins for waste separation.