Serbia needs facilities for ship generated waste

BELGRADE - Minister of Transport Aleksandar Antic said on Friday that Serbia does not have a single facility for disposing of ship-generated waste, so a total of nine facilities should be built along the Danube, Sava, Tisa rivers.

Antic, who is running for mayor of Belgrade on the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) slate for early local elections in the capital that will be held simultaneously with early parliamentary elections on March 16, told reporters that the Secretariat for Environmental Protection of the City of Belgrade earmarked RSD 10 million for a study aimed at building the first facility in Belgrade.

In Serbia, the Danube, Sava and Tisa are navigable rivers, with 15,000 ships passing on an annual level, noted the outgoing minister, while touring the riverbank.

Antic said that six facilities should be built along the Danube River, two along the Sava, and one along the Tisa River.

The EU is ready to finance the drafting of studies for other facilities in the country, he said.

In Serbia, the garbage from ships is discharged and their tanks cleaned in an illegal way, which has a very adverse effect on the rivers and environment, Antic noted.

Potable water in many towns comes from rivers and the illegal discharge of ship-generated waste "gives cause for serious concern", he said.

"Several weeks ago, the Ministry of Transport signed the Amsterdam Declaration, and the country thus joined the family of European peoples that are bound to take care of the situation along their rivers in terms of environmental protection and transport," he said.

Antic said that it is yet to be decided whether facilities will be built through public-private partnerships, or Serbia will finance them...