The Directorate for Inspection Supervision, within the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Northern Development (MERS), carried out increased supervision of car service stations and tire repair shops throughout Montenegro during November, and 192 inspections were carried out in all municipalities, during which 10.800 waste tires were found.
This was announced today by MERS.
"The subjects of supervision were instructed to hand over the waste tires to a collector who has a permit from the Environmental Protection Agency for the collection of the type of waste in question, and they acted in accordance with the instructions," the statement said.
The statement added that the Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Northern Development, Damjan Ćulafić, emphasized that these concrete and measurable results are a strong incentive for an intensive and continuous fight against environmental crime and the preservation of natural resources, since the disposal and burning of waste tires in nature has been a decades-old problem.
"He stressed the importance of forming a special unit to combat environmental crime, recalling that, at the initiative of Deputy Prime Minister Aleksa Bečić, the Bureau for Operational Coordination instructed the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the police to form a specialized team within the Crime Prevention Sector that will be focused on recognizing, documenting and prosecuting criminal acts that harm the environment. He also noted that a specialized machine for treating tires, a crusher with a capacity of 5–10 tons per village", which enables efficient and environmentally friendly disposal of tires, significantly reducing their volume and facilitating further recycling. With this, as he assessed, Montenegro has taken an important step towards modern, sustainable waste management," the statement reads.
MERS said that this area is also regulated through the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Program, prescribed by the Waste Management Law, which implies the involvement of tire manufacturers and importers in an organized system of collection and treatment of waste tires and their responsibility for the disposal of the product once it becomes waste.
"MERS, through the actions of the newly established Directorate for Inspection Supervision in the form of intensified prevention activities, continues to cooperate with all competent authorities and international partners with the aim of creating an environment in which nature will be truly protected, and those responsible for its destruction will be brought to justice," the statement said.
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