Ljubljana, 10 January 2004. Ten NGOs from different regions all over Slovenia came together and formed on 10 January 2004 the Coalition for Sustainable Waste Management in response to renewed attempt to build incinerators for municipal solid waste in the country. The Coalition sees
waste incineration as unnecessary, dangerous, economically flawed and socially unjust and calls for a moratorium on the construction of new incinerators in Slovenia before 2015.

The Coalition is asking all stakeholders to get involved in the revision of the Strategic Guidelines on Waste Management, which favors waste incineration. The Coalition will push for proven strategies and systems that place emphasis on waste prevention, waste minimization, reduction in the use of toxic materials, reuse, recycling and composting to achieve a target waste diversion rate of 80 per cent before 2015.

The Coalition will campaign against environmentally damaging subsidies, especially against subsidies paid for energy recovered from waste incineration processes. The Coalition opposes attempts to classify waste incinerators as a source of renewable energy, with the exception of strictly monitored wood biomass incineration.

The Ministry for Environment, Spatial Planing and Energy (MoE) published the said Guidelines in 1996 that includes the construction of two municipal solid waste incinerators. Ninety per cent of the votes cast in a 2001 local referendum held in Kidricevo - a favored site for one of the incinerators - showed that residents were opposed to the project. Despite this, the MoE continues to ignore the outcome arguing that it was not a legally binding referendum. The Guidelines, which were revised in September 2003, again proposes the erection of incinerators: one in Kidricevo and another in Trbovlje.

For more information, please contact Erika Oblak or visit the Umanotera website at http://www.umanotera.org