Although an ecological country, Montenegro has not actually started to solve the issue of waste tire management. As Televizija Vijesti learned from the Ministry of Ecology, the intention is to transfer the legal responsibility to importers, who will have to dispose of the tires when they become waste.
Unlike the Capital City, the first important steps in solving this problem were made in the Bar Landfill.
Tires are burned almost every day in Podgorica. In the civil sector, they say that this is the result of inaction and negligence of institutions.
"Because by-laws have not been completed, information systems, customs procedures and so on have not been implemented. What is missing here is the desire and will to resolve this issue", explains Azra Vuković from the NGO "Green home".
In the Podgorica Landfill, they do not have the possibility to, as they say, dispose of tires, but only communal waste.
By force of circumstances, when the "Čistoće" trucks bring them from wild landfills, they separate them and leave them in two locations - the first within the landfill and on Ćemovsko polje. The problem, they would say, would have to be solved by the Government.
"Now the ball is in the Ministry's court to find a solution, to find a private partner in order to treat those tires in an adequate way," said Arsenije Boljević from the Podgorica Landfill.
However, the Ministry of Ecology, Spatial Planning and Urbanism responds that for a long-term solution to the problem of waste tires, it is necessary to adopt a new Law on Waste Management and a State Plan for Waste Management, which is planned, supposedly by the end of the year.
The solution, they point out in the written response, will be found in the organizational and financial responsibility of the importer of car tires.
"This means that the importers will be responsible, when those tires become waste, to dispose of them in a legally acceptable manner," the Ministry's response states.
Waiting for the state to solve the long-standing problem, they took the first steps in Bar. They did a basic Study for the collection, storage and processing of waste tires, in order to build such a facility within the Bar Landfill.
An Elaborate on environmental impact assessment has also been prepared, so now they are completing the documentation, so that they can get a work permit.
"We have reserved an area of some 10.000 square meters within the landfill, where the facility should be built. Since we are in possession of a multi-purpose shredder, we would like to shred waste tires. At another stage, the already crushed granulate could that it turns into some kind of granulate that would be more favorable for economic valorization," Senad Arabelović from the Možura Bar landfill pointed out.
In the Bar Landfill, they expect that in the second half of next year they could start collecting and crushing tires, but it is still too early to talk about further treatment. They still need the help of the state, because the treatment of tires costs about 100 euros per ton, so the plant would have to have subsidies from the state or money from IPA projects...
NGO activists are surprised that all these years the authorities have failed to compete for money with the project in Brussels.
"Unfortunately, we don't even have reactions when we see tires on the field. We just leave it to the elements and do nothing," said Vuković.
The author of the "Eyes of Podgorica" series, Predrag Tomović, has a concrete proposal.
"The state must introduce an eco-tax, determine a nominal value that importers will pay, and used tires will be bought from that amount later," said Tomović.
The Institute for Public Health warns that the gases and chemicals released by burning tires are extremely toxic to human health and harmful to the environment.
That's why they appealed for the law to prohibit and strictly sanction any burning of tires.
Bonus video:
