Comparative analysis of waste management in Austria and Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country facing many challenges on its path to become an EU member. One of these challenges is waste management. As a future candidate for the EU, Bosnia and Herzegovina will have to transpose and implement the Chapter 27: Environment, which concerns waste management. The goal of this thesis is to evaluate the present situation and give suggestions in order to improve future waste management system in the country. Due many problems with the data collection and evidencing of waste, it is hard to evaluate the present situation. The main question of this thesis is whether the goals of waste management are fulfilled by current waste management system? Also are these goals in harmony with EU? And, is the current legislation effective in providing framework for waste management? I have compared the goals of EU, Austria and Bosnia and Herzegovina to come to the conclusion that in Bosnia and Herzegovina there is only one goal; protection of human health and environment, which in my opinion is a suitable goal for the country. Also, I have compared the legislative framework of BiH and Austria and came to conclusion that for BiH, it does not provide appropriate framework for effective waste management. In order to answer the main question of thesis, I had to evaluate the current WM system. This was done using MFA and comparing the results of the research with the goals of WM. The results show that BiH is very far from fulfilling the goal of protection of human health and environment. The means for reaching this goal are not used appropriately and much harm is currently being done to environment and public health. My conclusion is that, having in mind current political and economic situation, the country needs to focus on the improvement of landfilling rather than the prevention of waste trough building regional waste management centers. Improvement in Landfilling is priority. This will solve major problems of waste management in the country, some of which are no appropriate treatment of waste, landfilling untreated waste, landfills which are not sanitary and non-evidencing of waste flows and lack of information and data on waste.