Budget set for waste disposal

RIGA - Over 120 million euros will be invested until 2013 in order to improve the disposal of waste in Latvia, with three main streams of work for the following years: eliminating small dumpsites, constructing landfills according to the European Union (EU) Directive and providing a collection system that allows citizens to separate garbage. This last objective has the highest budget, which reaches 69.8 million euros from 2007 to 2013, while the closure of dumpsites will cost 19.6 million euros and the improvement of landfills another 69.8 million euros.

Ilze Donina, Senior Desk Officer of the Environment Protection Department of the Ministry of Environment of Latvia, explains that these three main streams of work have the support of Cohesion Funds of the European Union. There are no projects regarding recycling coming from the Ministry of Environment, since the investment in this area is the responsibility of the Ministry of Economics.

Latvia is now working on shutting down a “huge amount of little disposal sites, landfills are being constructed to close these small disposal areas.” Donina admits that “there is quite a lot to do; 97 dump sites have been closed, 27 contracts signed, approximately 23 projects approved,” but “this process will be finished in 2013; we hope we will reach the target.”
Regarding the construction of landfills, the Ministry is also “quite satisfied because nine landfills will soon submit project proposals and five are in project preparation.” Latvia produces around 700,000 tons of municipal waste yearly, an amount that was higher before but is decreasing due to the financial crisis.

The separation of waste in Latvia started recently, but Donina regrets that the Environment Protection Department is “facing problems because the number of projects is not as we planned; since the EU Cohesion Funds only cover 50 percent, the rest has to be covered by applicants, and in the current economic situation it is hard to get loans.”

The government promoted some campaigns in 2010, inviting citizens to take part in the collection of waste, but “every municipality is responsible for their waste” and for now, in cities like Riga, the municipality prefers not to put bins on the streets and trusts that citizens will bring their garbage bags out when the collection trucks are working. Donina explains that there has been a “long on-going discussion about waste and how to collect it in the central part of Riga; for now there are no containers in the streets, people have to leave their garbage bags in the street until the truck picks it up.”

Even though the European Union is one of the most prosperous economic zones in the world, economic and social disparities between its member states and among its regions are significant. The Cohesion Policy seeks to strengthen the economic, social and territorial cohesion of the Union. An important first landmark was the publication of the Commission Communication on Cohesion Policy and the Environment in 1995. The Cohesion Policy continues as in the past, but with a special focus on meeting the goals of the Renewed Lisbon Strategy. The package of Regulations and the Community Strategic Guidelines were adopted in 2006, with a total budget of 308 billion euros.

In this context, Latvia is working to meet the EU Directive about landfill of waste, approved on April 26, 1999 and entered into force on July 16, 1999. The objective of the Directive is to prevent or reduce, as far as possible, negative effects on the environment from the landfilling of waste, by introducing stringent technical requirements for waste and landfills.
The Directive is intended to prevent or reduce the adverse effects of the landfill of waste on the environment, in particular on surface water, groundwater, soil, air and human health. It defines the different categories of waste (municipal waste, hazardous waste, non-hazardous waste and inert waste) and applies to all landfills, defined as waste disposal sites for the deposit of waste onto or into land. Landfills are divided into three classes: for hazardous waste; for non-hazardous waste; and for inert waste.

However, the Directive does not apply to: the spreading on the soil of sludge; the use in landfills of inert waste for redevelopment or restoration work; the deposit of unpolluted soil or of non-hazardous inert waste resulting from prospecting and extraction, treatment and storage of mineral resources as well as from the operation of quarries; the deposit of non-hazardous dredging of sludge alongside small waterways from which they have been dredged and of non-hazardous sludge in surface water, including the bed and its subsoil.

A standard waste acceptance procedure is laid down so as to avoid any risks: waste must be treated before being landfilled; hazardous waste within the meaning of the Directive must be assigned to a hazardous waste landfill; landfills for non-hazardous waste must be used for municipal waste and for non-hazardous waste; and landfill sites for inert waste must be used only for inert waste.