On 3-7 October a delegation of 38 people made a study visit to Romania and Bulgaria. The goal of the visit was to facilitate the exchange of experience and best practices in the field of integrated solid waste management. Representatives of the Ministry of Regional Development and Construction, Ministry of Environment, State Ecological Inspectorate and of local public authorities level I and II from the centre and north of the country were part of delegation. The visit was organised within the ‘Modernization of Local Public Services in the Republic of Moldova’ (MLPS) project, implemented by German Development Cooperation through GIZ.
During five days, the delegation from the Republic of Moldova met officials from Romania and Bulgaria. Also, visits were made to several waste collecting, storing, sorting, processing, composting and disposal sites.
On the first day, the participants had a meeting in Bucharest with the representatives of the Ministry of Environment of Romania, Romanian Association for Solid Waste Management, National Environmental Guard and members of a Local Action Group (LAG). After that, the delegation from the Republic of Moldova visited a waste disposal site managed by IRIDEX, first Romanian sanitation to ensure integrated waste management.
On the second day of the study visit, the delegation left for Ruse, Bulgaria. Here, they visited the landfill facility outside the city and held working meetings with the representatives of Regional Environment and Water Inspectorate and local public administration. On 5 October, the delegation visited the landfill and waste sorting station from Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria. Here, they had a meeting with the representatives of Regional Environmental Inspectorate and vice-mayor of the city.
On 6 October the participants had the opportunity to have a discussion with the representatives of Intercommunity Development Association (IDA) from Pitesti and to visit the landfill outside the city, where they found out more details regarding the waste selection and sorting process. On the last day of the study visit, the delegation headed to Vaslui and visited a waste transfer station.
Alexandru Ambros, mayor of Ungheni city: ‘This is a successful visit. The acquired information will be very useful for me to form a clear vision about the development of collecting, transporting and disposal service’.
Natalia Adam, Nisporeni town municipality representative: ‘The visit has opened new horizons with regard to efficient solid waste management modalities. An efficient knowledge acquiring is by comparing. The examples of Romania and Bulgaria in terms of solid waste systems’ infrastructure will help us acknowledge the gaps in our system and address them’.
Victor Popov, director ‘Apa Canal’ (Water Utility) Nisporeni: ‘The practical part, as for instance, the visits to the landfills was, indeed, useful. Theory and information is fine, but when you go and see things with your own eyes, it is much more helpful. I understood how the landfills function and how the waste is being collected. The visit really achieved its purpose. For, besides theoretical information we had an efficient exchange of experience and information with our colleagues from Romania and Bulgaria’.
Denis Parea, national advisor in solid waste management within MLPS/GIZ: ‘…this visit would not be possible without the support of our colleagues from Romania and Bulgaria and in particular, Alexei Atudorei, president of International Solid Waste Association (ISWA), who facilitated the organisation of the events on the territory of Romania and Nikola Doychinov, who provided support in the events organised in Bulgaria… We chose Romania and Bulgaria because what is wanted in the Republic of Moldova, namely what is mentioned in the Waste Management Strategy is very close to what has already been done in these two countries. Our goal is to learn from their experience and not make the mistakes they did. I am sure the visit was a useful one, especially for the participants, who had the possibility to see how things work in reality, not just in Power Point. We intend to continue this partnership with Romania and Bulgaria in the future and invite experts in the field who will keep on providing advice in this respect’.
The project ‘Modernization of local public services in the Republic of Moldova’ (MLPS) is implemented by the German Development Cooperation through GIZ and is financially supported by the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Swedish Government, the Romanian Government, the European Union and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).
