Illustrative stock photo (source: SME - Tibor Somogyi)
Most waste produced by Slovak households still ends up in landfills. Slovakia lags behind in the increase of recycling and decreasing the amount of waste.
The amount of waste Slovakia produces in a year remains about 10 million tonnes, according to the report of the Environment Ministry, the TASR newswire reported.
The state's Programme on Decreasing the Amount of Waste as of 2018 has not delivered the expected results. The ministry argues that it is also due to the five-year period set out in the programme, which it deems too short a time to bring about such fundamental change in the approach to waste.
The ministry admits that depositing waste in landfills is the worst possible solution for dealing with waste, but at the same time it has issued several permits to increase the capacity of existing landfills.
"The existing landfills must continue providing sufficient capacity for waste, so it is necessary to increase their capacity," Environment Ministry spokesperson Tomas Ferencak told TASR.
The European Commission expects to decrease the amount of waste in landfills to 10 percent of the overall amount of waste in the country by 2030. In Slovakia, the portion was at 70 percent in 2013, TASR reported.
