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Waste management

The wastes that we produce in our daily life are constantly growing following the tendency of the economic growth. For reducing the risks for health and for environment, European policy tries to disconnect the production of waste from the economic growth.

For preparing its accession to the European Union, Romania adopted a whole legislation on waste management. This legislation is based on a hierarchy of priorities:

• Prevention and minimisation of waste quantities and of toxicity of wastes
• Recycling of certain materials
• Recuperating of energy by incinerating of co-incinerating
• Treatment for reducing the amount and the risks of wastes
• Putting in waste dumps

Among the main tools necessary for the implementation of this waste management policy in Romania, national, regional and local waste management plans have been prepared. For being implemented correctly, we need:

• An adequate institutional organisational and institutional framework
• Aware stakeholders involved
• The intensification of the reduction of waste at source
• The launching of projects using the best available techniques and economic systems for the recuperation and the recycling of wastes and for the reduction of the putting in waste dumps.

In the field of waste, the twinning project will work in two directions. The first is to help the agency to create an information system: Evaluation of the current system on waste and proposition of improvements. A system for collecting data on waste was prepared by NEPA in 2001, which could be adapted for REPA and LEPAs.

The second direction is to make a hierarchy projects in the field of waste management by defining criteria, so that they could be integrated in the National plan for Regional Development. Once included, they could be co-financed by European structural funds.

The updating of the regional waste management plans is also ongoing, with the support of another twinning at the national level. It should be finished in 2006. These plans will then become a major component of the Regional Plans for Environment.