Words by Pippa Gallop. Pippa is a research coordinator at CEE Bankwatch Network, the largest network of grassroots, environmental and human rights groups in central and eastern Europe. Based in Croatia, she specializes in monitoring coal and hydropower in the Western Balkans.
In a recent win for activists in Belgrade, Serbia, the European Investment Bank has decided to drop financing for the planned Vinča municipal waste incinerator. This is great news for our grantee, Ne Davimo Beograd, who had been challenging the project due to evidence of exacerbated air pollution and negative impacts on recycling.
For more than 40 years, the city of Belgrade, Serbia has dropped waste into the Vinča landfill. In September 2017, the city signed a 25-year public-private partnership contract with the Suez-Itochu consortium to build a 340,000 metric tons-per-year communal waste incinerator to burn around 66% of Belgrade’s current municipal waste.
However, 68% of Belgrade’s waste is recyclable or compostable, and should not land in landfills, or be burnt. Ne Davimo Beograd highlighted the fact that building a large waste incinerator is likely to crowd out initiatives to prevent, compost, and recycle waste, and that it would worsen Belgrade’s already appalling air pollution.
In early 2018, the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) planned to finance the incinerator.
In response, in July 2019, Global Greengrants Fund awarded $5,000 to Ne Davimo Beograd to raise public awareness of the planned incinerator and its alternatives, and to continue communication with the banks about the project.
In September 2019, the IFC and EBRD approved loans for the incinerator, even though the EBRD was unable to clarify to what extent the project would comply with new EU technical standards to reduce pollution from waste incineration.
One month later, the EIB shared that it had decided not to go ahead with the project, based on its own project assessment and that of the European Commission. Both organizations had concluded that building an incinerator would prevent Serbia from achieving its environmental targets on recycling and the circular economy as part of the EU accession process.
Aleksa Petković from Ne Davimo Beograd said, “We welcome the EIB and the Commission’s recognition that Belgrade should not be prioritizing incineration. We are already suffering from low recycling levels and dire air quality. The last thing we need is another source of pollution and another diversion from setting up a functional recycling system. The EBRD, IFC and OeEB need to withdraw from this project while they still can.”
The fight is not over – the coming months will be crucial in the battle to change Belgrade’s waste policy. It is not too late for the EBRD, IFC and OeEB to withdraw from the incinerator project and create space for a new circular economy approach befitting of a 21st Century European country. We hope that they’ll do just that, and will continue to stand with activists putting pressure on the banks to make decisions resulting in a cleaner, healthier future.