News
CATEGORY: Environment, Solid Waste Management
LOCATION: South East Europe
START/END: 2014 - 2016
CONSULTANCY BUDGET: 700,000
CLIENT: European Commission, DG Environmental & Climate Action
ORIGIN OF FUNDING: European Commission, DG Environmental & Climate Action
PARTNERS: Eunomia Research & Consulting
LDK’s BUDGET SHARE: 36%
STAFF PROVIDED: 4
Type of Services
The consultant will assist the Commission in:
- identifying a set of objective criteria for the assessment of waste management practice in the Western Balkan countries, based on current EU legal requirements in the waste sector;
- analysing the waste management situation in the six (6) Western Balkan countries "on the ground", against the background of national waste management plans and waste prevention programmes, and identifying potential deficiencies in waste management practice that could lead to non-compliance with EU waste legislation, in particular the waste hierarchy and the targets;
- proposing a set of recommendations (“roadmaps”) to address these deficiencies which could help bring the Western Balkan countries up the waste hierarchy;
- proposing options for feasible regional cooperation in the form of shared waste infrastructure in this sector for specific waste streams including electric and electronic waste;
- presenting the results of the studies to the stakeholders from all the Western Balkan countries in the framework of national workshops.
More specifically the consultant will:
- carry out a comprehensive assessment of the waste situation and produce one National Waste Assessment for each of the six (6) Western Balkan countries;
- develop a set of objective criteria which could be used to assess the performance of the Western Balkan countries in waste management and anticipate any potential future deficiencies. The criteria should be based on the requirements of the EU waste legislation and take the waste hierarchy as a starting point. These criteria should be clear and precise;
- screen the waste management practices of all Western Balkan countries against the criteria developed and elaborate 6 National Waste Assessments describing the situation in each individual Western Balkan country;
- propose actions for improving the waste management in the six Western Balkan countries ("roadmaps") by:
- defining the nature and identifying the reasons for the existence of a problem (financial, legal, geographical, cultural, governance, others). This will require a deeper analysis of a selected issue, including review of national legislation, interviews with key stakeholders (governmental and non-governmental), and targeted stakeholder consultations;
- developing a set of recommendations (a "roadmap") for each Western Balkan country that could help solve the listed problems, taking into account the specific situation of each country; the roadmaps will also include an indicative timescale and costs for their realisation.
- consult the relevant public administration institution(s) (i.e. Ministry of Environment) of each of the 6 countries of the Western Balkans in order to receive their opinion and finalise the roadmaps. The finalised roadmaps shall be part of the final National Waste Assessments;
- provide a maximum of 30 compliance checks (10 checks/country) article-by-article of national waste legislation against EU waste acquis, for selected acquis to be provided by the Contracting Authority, for the following Western Balkans country: Former Yugoslav, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia;
- present options for the management of the recycling of electric and electronic waste in the Western Balkan region, including the potential development and establishment of shared waste infrastructure in the region for electric and electronic equipment (WEEE) waste;
- organise 6 national workshops for dissemination and exchange of information;
- organise one regional workshop in one of the countries covered by the study
Staff provided:
- Costis Nicolopoulos; (Deputy project director) Regional Management Team
- Evie Litou
- Christos Stathis
- Eleni Avramidi
Description
Within the EU environmental acquis, waste is one of the most demanding sectors in terms of the resources needed for the implementation of the relevant EU legislation. The Commission’s Annual Progress Reports for each of the Western Balkan countries underline the efforts that still need to be made in this sector in order to achieve full compliance before accession to the EU.
Of the different waste streams, waste from electric and electronic (WEEE) products is the fastest growing in the EU, producing 8.3-9.1million tonnes in 2005, growing to 12.3 million tonnes of WEEE by 2020. The Western Balkans face two main problems related to WEEE: 1) the disposal which is mostly to landfill and 2) the suboptimal recycling and recovery of WEEE resulting in a loss of significant valuable recyclable resources and damage to health and the environment. The purpose of this study is to firstly conduct a comprehensive assessment of the current situation in the waste sector in the Western Balkan countries and to determine the state of preparedness of the countries to transpose and implement the EU acquis in this sector and secondly, to conduct a study on the feasibility of regional cooperation in the area of WEEE advanced recycling versus national action.
The final outputs will be composed of several elements:
- 6 National Waste Assessments, one for each of the Western Balkan countries. The assessment will include a presentation of the current situation in each of the countries in the waste sector and the respective roadmaps for improving waste management;
- A maximum of 30 compliance checks of selected national legislation against selected pieces of EU waste acquis;
- A study on the options for regional co-operation in the area of electric and electronic waste management and their feasibility in practice.
The results of the study will be presented to stakeholders from each of the Western Balkan countries in the framework of one regional and six national workshops.
