Environment and Nature Protection Minister Mihael Zmajlovic on Friday met with the residents of Zagreb's Jakusevac suburb, which is near the capital's landfill, to discuss waste management, announcing amendments to regulations so that local authorities could adjust the amount and payment deadline of compensation for the diminished value of real estate near the landfill.
Darko Furic, a representative of Jakusevac residents, said he was pleased with the meeting.
Zmajlovic said it was just for all the people who lived near the dump to be compensated somehow, adding that in the next few days the ministry would find a way to enable municipalities and towns, including Zagreb, to regulate compensation for the diminished value of real estate differently than now.
He said the only permanent solution for Jakusevac and its residents was to "urgently begin separating waste" and "build a waste management centre, depending on technology, either an incinerating plant or mechanical-biological processing."
Asked by the press if he would adopt a regulation on the payment of "ecology annuity," Zmajlovic said this matter, "which has even been put in the draft environmental protection law, is untenable. It doesn't exist in any European Union country as such."
The residents of Jakusevac would not allow garbage trucks to access the landfill for three days in late August, because of which the capital's streets were filled with garbage.
