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- Ελληνικά
It is with great pleasure that I am with you today, at the conference organised in the framework of the European Week of Waste Prevention, an institution in which Cyprus has been participating for years.
The theme of this year's week is "packaging" with the motto "Don't get lost in packaging - Don't Get Wrapped up". We are here to inform and educate ourselves on the ways in which we can make the transition to a circular society, while taking responsibility for making the right decision on how to reduce the waste we produce, how to manage it, our footprint on the environment, as well as making the right choice on the products we buy and the real need we have for them.
Environmental protection is one of the priorities and key objectives of the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural It is promoted with a focus on ensuring an integrated policy and legislation aimed at the sustainable use of waste, overturning the perception that waste is a problem, and bringing it back into the cycle to be used as raw materials, giving it value and life again. This is the importance of the green economy.
If we look at the waste hierarchy pyramid, we can see that the priority in waste management is prevention, followed by reduction and reuse. This is the purpose of today's workshop and of the European Week for Waste Prevention in general.
So we too, through the importance of the green and circular economy, are called upon to reduce our waste through prevention and reduction, to repair what can regain life, instead of throwing it away and replacing it with something new, reusing what can be reused, giving it a role of use again, recycling, giving it value and thus putting it back into the production cycle, and, as a last option, recovering and disposing of it.
We are entering a new era, a more demanding and faster-paced era, with the aim of creating adequate infrastructure and institutionalising effective procedures for the rational management of waste.
The challenges and difficulties we face today are many and come from various aspects, economic, social, humanitarian and environmental.
Last year, the Council of Ministers approved the National Waste Management Plan prepared by the Department of Environment, through which measures are being promoted to prevent and reduce waste, as well as to manage it rationally and increase the rates of reuse, repair and recycling.
Through the Municipal Waste Management Plan 2022-2028, the implementation of important projects is promoted, such as the programme to support local authorities in implementing source separation and separate collection systems for municipal waste and the Pay As I Fly programme, the programme for the prevention, separate collection and recovery of municipal waste in mountainous and semi-mountainous Cyprus, the programme for the reduction of municipal waste from seaside hotels and other mass waste generating sites and the financing of investments in the treatment sector. In parallel, four mobile household hazardous waste collection units have been constructed through the EEA/Norway Financial Mechanism to collect, inform and raise awareness. One such mobile unit will visit the Municipality of Larnaca tomorrow.
At the same time, the National Waste Prevention Programme has been prepared by the Environment Department and is expected to be approved by the Council of Ministers, setting out the framework of actions and measures to be implemented over the next six years to prevent waste generation.
The correct and effective implementation of this policy, however, requires the equal participation of all stakeholders, social groups and citizens.
Friends,
The aim of all of us is to inform, raise awareness and involve our fellow citizens in activities to reduce waste and protect the environment.
Today, we will watch and listen to the actions carried out by various organisations and businesses, including our children, in order to set an example and be inspired, with the aim of preventing the creation of waste and managing it rationally.
It is our challenge to achieve a better tomorrow by changing our way of thinking, changing our habits and integrating the philosophy of waste prevention into our everyday life, as part of our culture now.
We set ambitious targets for zero waste, but not impossible ones. Together we all have the power to achieve it, for the benefit of ourselves, our children and the environment.
I would like to thank the Department of Environment for these efforts and you who are here today, especially the speakers of today's workshop for their interesting presentations, as well as all the exhibitors who are with us, contributing through their own initiatives to the transition to a circular economy.
So let's change our habits.
Let's change our habits. Let's get out of the "box" we are used to and not "get lost in the packaging".
Because the best waste is the waste that was never produced.
Thank you.
(BG)
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Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or PIO
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