Another Environmental Protection Major Project Approved by Brussels18 February 2010
The European Union has approved the Hungarian major project „Mecsek-Dráva waste management programme – recultivation of dump sites. Together with this decision, 17 major projects have now received a nod of approval from Brussels, the total funding value of which exceeds 616 billion HUF and the total investment value of which is more than 891 billion HUF. Moreover, a further 13 major projects have been approved by the Government, of which 7 are currently awaiting approval in Brussels.
The way in which Hungary continuously ranks among the leading EU member states in terms of the number of major projects submitted demonstrates the success of Hungarian development policy. Moreover, only 7.5% of major projects envisaged to be implemented by member states have been approved at an EU level, which ratio is substantially higher in Hungary’s case and reaches 22%. These investments are extremely significant also because of how major investments prepared at a high standard will represent responses to the challenges the building industry and Hungarian labour market are facing due to the international financial and economic crisis.
The total cost of the major project that has just been approved amounts to 8.6 billion HUF, of which 5.8 billion is financed by the EU. The environment of the several hundreds of thousands of people living in the settlements where this project will be implemented will become cleaner and more liveable thanks to this investment.
25 of the 89 dump sites operating in the region will be shut down and waste collected will be sorted as an outcome this major project. After the waste is selected, waste metals will be sold, hazardous waste will be shipped away to a suitable disposal site and the waste remaining will be deposited at a safe dump site. Recultivation will be performed at 64 of these dump sites, i.e., these dump sites will be covered and sealed off to prevent waste materials from seeping into the soil whenever there is any precipitation.
93 ground water monitoring wells and 29 gas monitoring wells will be set up within the framework of construction work, concurrently to which a complex regional waste collection system will be developed in the region within the framework of another major EU project.
Once this project is implemented, a sustainable waste management system considered a state-of-the-art system even at an EU level will be created, every parameter of which complies with commitments Hungary has assumed. This project will resolve the region’s expectations vis-à-vis waste management for many decades to come and addresses environmental protection tasks that arise.