Meetings with utility companies in Bihać and Novi Travnik
Managing Director of "Ekopak" Amela Hrbat, Director of the Association for Economic Development "Redah" Ivica Sivrić and Director of Marketing Agency "Republic" Alen Ćorović, who are in charge of implementing the regional project "Management of glass packaging in the Western Balkans" in BiH, visited City of Bihać and Municipality of Novi Travnik, two of the four local communities in which this pilot project is being implemented.
During the visit, they recorded an interesting story in Novi Travnik. Director of PUC Vilenica-Čistoća from Novi Travnik, Svjetlana Tokalić, said that her fellow citizens reacted very positively to the setting of bells for glass packaging and told an interesting story about two boys from a nearby village who visited their neighbors' houses for days on their own initiative. collected packaging waste and placed all glass in ''bell''. The container was filled in just a few days. It was the first bell in Novi Travnik (if not in all local communities where the project is implemented) to be the filled in such a short time with glass packaging.
PUC Vilenica-Čistoća from Novi Travnik has already collected significant quantities of glass packaging and it is estimated that this percentage will greatly increase after the closure of emergency measures due to the corona virus pandemic.
They have similar experiences in Bihać. Director of the Public Utility Company "Komrad" from Bihać, Mehura Selimović, expressed satisfaction that his city is participating in this project and optimistically announced that the City of Bihać will be a leader in collecting glass packaging from four local communities in which the project is implemented.
As the project started during the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic, Public Utility Company "Komrad" could not engage in logistical and promotional support to the project to the maximum extent, so management of this company emphasized that they were satisfied with the collected quantities of glass packaging.
They also presented useful information from the field work and proposed valuable initiatives for greater visibility of the project. In Komrad, they emphasized that the local media in Bihać presented information related to the launch of the project in their city and that they received good reactions from citizens to this initiative.
The German Organization for International Cooperation (GIZ) and the National Alliance for Local Economic Development "Naled" from Serbia in cooperation with the first operator of the packaging waste management system in Bosnia and Herzegovina "Ekopak" and the system operators "Sekopak" from Serbia and "Pakomak" from Northern Macedonia, as well as the Association for Economic Development of Herzegovina REDAH and the Association of Local Self-Government Units ZELS, launched regional project "Management of glass packaging in the Western Balkans", which will be implemented in Bosnia and Herzegovina in Bihać and Novi Travnik, Konjic and Ilidža. and one of the goals is to increase the collection rate of glass packaging in these municipalities by 20%.