Integrated waste management systems & PPPs in Greece

Solid waste management is considered to be a multi-dimensional issue due to the variety of factors involved. Such factors indicatively include technology issues in respect to environmental performance and output, issues of strategic and political policy and planning, public awareness and social maturity questions, as well as issues of financial viability.

The Greek legislative framework distributes the administrative jurisdiction among central government and local administrations, depending on the form, size and importance of each relevant project. Despite the already set legislation according to EU standards and directives, the realisation of projects has been evolving at a very slow pace, depictive of state bureaucracy and lack of implementation mechanisms. A permanent unauthorised but realised practice is the uncontrolled solid waste burial, especially common in rural and smaller urban areas. The well intentioned government planning, in the frame of implementing the legislative framework, has been facing issues of funding, slow processes and public approval and awareness, having as a consequence either incomplete projects or court procedures.