With the help of the European Cohesion Fund, the municipality of Velke Ripnany, in the Nitra region of western Slovakia, acquired 761 garden composters for its residents to reduce the amount of biologically decomposable waste.
- 29 May 2020
The composters offer the residents the perfect opportunity to dispose of their garden and household waste and turn it into quality compost.
An initiative by the Slovak Ministry of Environment on behalf of the Slovak Environmental Agency, the project set out to prevent the accumulation of biologically decomposable waste and its disposal at the local landfill. The composters help reduce the amount of mixed municipal waste and the total amount of waste.
Free, quality compost
Each composter has a storing capacity of 0.65 cubic metres or 650 litres. The 761 composters allow the municipality to recover 494.65 cubic metres of biodegradeable waste, while freeing up the same amount of space at municipal facilities used to process and recycle other types of waste.
The acquisition of the composters led to a substantial increase in waste recovery, turning garden and decomposable household waste into quality compost. Part of the project’s goal was to reduce the costs of removing decomposable waste from households and transporting it to the landfill. This also reduced illegal bio-waste dumping.
A local initiative for a national strategy
The project contributed to achieving aims set out in the country’s national legislation and strategy for reducing the amount of biologically decomposable waste disposed of in landfills.
Opting for residential compostable waste recovery, instead of transporting it to a landfill, has a positive impact on the environment, decreases the economic burden on the municipality and residents and eventually leads to considerable financial savings.
Not only has the cost of processing domestic bio-waste been reduced to practically nothing, both the municipality and its residents save money buying purchasing fertilisers or growing substrates, used to maintain public and private greenery in parks, gardens and households. This has led to an increase of the village’s greenery and had a positive environmental impact.
Total investment and EU funding
Total investment for the project “AGCMVR – Acquisition of garden composters in the municipality of Velke Ripnany” is EUR 86 160 with the EU’s Cohesion Fund contributing EUR 73 236 through the “Quality of Environment – Slovakia” Operational Programme for the 2014-2020 programming period. The investment falls under the priority “Sustainable use of natural resources through development of environmental infrastructure”.