Belgrade, 24 April 2018 – In the organization of the National Petroleum Committee of Serbia, the Chamber of Commerce of Serbia in Belgrade hosted a workshop in the framework of the international project “WASTEOILFREE - Integrated Waste-Oils Management System - Transfer of Best Practices for Safe, Sustainable and Eco-friendly Transport in Serbia”, being implemented in cooperation with partnering organizations from the Czech Republic.
The workshop attracted widespread interest and gathered representatives of relevant state ministries and agencies of the Republic of Serbia (Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, Ministry of Mining and Energy, Serbian Port Governance Agency, Directorate for Inland Waterways, etc.) and members of the National Petroleum Committee of Serbia – World Petroleum Council, along with renowned private companies from Europe that are present at the market of collecting waste oils and ship transport in Serbia and which during the workshop expressed great interest in the further development of this type of business (MOL, Avista Oil, Mondoluka).
The participants were briefly introduced with a current Serbian environment legislation and previous waste oils and waste management projects already implemented in Serbia and region. It was followed by the presentations of statistical overview of the current waste oils situation in Czech Republic, analysis of existing legislative framework in Czech Republic and neighboring countries (Slovakia and Austria), as well as with a detailed presentation of practical functioning of Czech waste oils management system (including also shipping waste oils). Workshop participants agreed that there is significant need for adopting and application of the best EU practices in the field of collecting, classification and waste oils treatment, having in mind the fact that a centralized waste oil management system has not yet been developed in Serbia, and that approximately 40,000 tons of waste oil.
The WASTEOILFREE project is aimed at transferring the best EU practices from the Czech Republic, Austria and Slovakia to users in the Republic of Serbia in the field of introducing an integrated waste oil management system, which is of wider importance for the process of adapting the Serbian national legislation to the EU legislation in the sectors of ecology and waste management.
For the implementation of the project, grants from the Knowledge and Experience Exchange Program of the Central European Initiative (CEI KEP Italy) were provided, as one of the instruments for the exchange of experiences in order to increase the capacity of the members of this regional organization that gathers 18 countries of Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe.