Drivers for development of circular economy – A case study of Serbia

Abstract Poor waste management in developing countries indicates that waste generation is mostly associated with the economic status of a society, their weak economy-social factors affected by the absence of proper environmental legislation, financial management and administrative capacities. Over the years, increasing amount of waste without any treatment is mainly disposed of on the existing dumpsites in the municipalities. This practice not allows the exploitation of resources from waste, and represents a huge loss of resources and threat to the environment and human health. Therefore, this problem is very complex and requires constant adjustment of the situation, fluctuations and the needs and demands of innovative solutions. This paper is focused on the drivers that have the biggest impact on waste management in Serbia and improvement of the system by changing the impact of the drivers. The objective is related to waste management drivers in the context of circular economy. This includes establishing baseline data on waste and assessment of the current waste management system, setting future goals, identification of issues, plans for integrated waste management and their implementation. The paper identifies bottlenecks that restrict Serbian’s sustainable development, such as low levels of reuse, recycling and recovery of waste, shortage of advanced technology, significant waste disposal amounts and weak economic incentives. The comparison is made with the Municipality of Ljubljana approach to Zero waste practice and circular economy. This analysis depicts real opportunities for more sustainable and efficient waste management in the municipalities and suggests a step forward towards the integrating best Zero Waste practices in the municipalities in developing countries.