Waste management has become one of the global concerns in the past few years with the increasing source of waste generation such as households, factories, construction sites, refineries, and nuclear power plants.

As the population is rising at a high pace, consumption of resources and improvement in lifestyle has gained focus, thereby resulting in an enormous amount of waste generation. This waste needs to be managed properly to avoid serious problems for human health and the environment.

With respect to this, the World Bank took a huge step to manage solid waste material in Croatia, aiming to move toward a circular economy.

Here begins the story.

How did the World Bank become a part of Croatia’s waste management initiative?

In 2018, Croatia recognized the benefit of long-term economic and environmental sustainability by managing resources more efficiently in line with the European Union’s circular economy Package. Thus, the Government of Croatia acknowledged the need to integrate a circular economy by minimizing waste generation within the country. The plan was to separate the waste at the source itself, i.e., direct waste streams to utilize in various ways, and ultimately treat waste as a resource.

This plan was initiated in 2018 with the idea of attaining waste management and sustainability by meeting the EU’s circular economy targets. In addition to this, the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development (MoESD), on March 22nd, 2020, requested World Bank to support and assist technically in the implementation of the circular economy approaches in solid waste management.

In revert to this, the board of directors at World Bank considered the request and positively agreed to support Croatia on June 26th, 2020.

Later together, on November 16th, 2022, MoESD and the World Bank displayed the result of their 2-year continuous effort and technical assistance to Croatia’s waste management project before the world, focusing on the transition toward a circular economy (CE).

How is World Bank advancing CE principles in Croatian waste management?

The World Bank’s technical assistance and support to MoESD’s waste management action plan are helping integrate circular economy aspects in waste management.

This action plan includes a diagnosis of waste materials, and based on the analysis, recommendations are being made on the methods of speeding up the transformation toward CE. Along with the technical assistance, the World Bank also focuses on strengthening coordination among various stakeholders while promoting joint ownership of the new agenda for waste management.

Currently, the financial capabilities of the municipal corporation of Croatia to manage the separation, collection, and recycling of waste materials lack technicality, and thus, World Bank provides building capacity and access to cutting-edge technology and expertise to the involved parties.

Why is there a need to adopt a circular economy?

By definition, the circular economy is a framework of system solutions for increasing asset longevity and gradually reducing waste to tackle global challenges such as biodiversity loss, waste management, climate change, and pollution, considering the goals of sustainability and a green economy as the base.

Adoption of the circular economy model offers several benefits with a wide range of both economic and environmental feasibilities.

Environmental Benefits

Most of the global greenhouse gas emission originates from food production, non-renewable product use, and manufacturing units. However, implementing circular economy principles can reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 30%.

Roughly 300 million tons of plastic waste is produced every year, which ends up causing critical damage to the ecosystem and human health. Adopting the circular economy principles can reduce a significant amount of waste produced. Moreover, by creating new industries for better waste management, the promotion of a circular economy can also increase economic growth.

With the adoption of circular economy methods, a greater focus is being put on recycling, shifting from primarily virgin resource usage in manufacturing to a greater focus on recycling, repairing, and remanufacturing practices, which can reduce the consumption of natural and non-renewable resources.

Economic Benefits

The circular model of the economy provides various opportunities, such as remanufacturing services, sharing platforms, and products-as-a-service (PaaS) for economic growth.

The circular economy business model promotes the use of recycled products and decreases virgin materials as raw needs, which makes the companies’ exposure to volatile material prices lower and also reduces supply chain disruptions.

Conclusion

Croatia's waste management initiative can reduce health and environmental impacts along with reducing greenhouse gas emissions and unlocking energy and material efficiency gains. This is also expected to fuel the circular economy of the country, keeping sustainability factors at the prime.

With the support of the World Bank in the form of technical assistance, the goal is to achieve to recover at least 65% of municipal waste by recycling and reusing materials while reducing the amount of municipal waste landfilled to 10% by weight as of 2035.

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