TEMPUS CROATIA - Cleaner Production Centre Rijeka (2006 - 2009)

Since the 1960’s, mostly, problems with emissions of pollutants from industrial sources to the environment were addressed by the utilisation of end of pipe pollution control technologies. These approaches reduced the direct release of some pollutants to achieve regulatory compliance but did not really solve the problems. Often, the pollutants were only transferred from one sink to the other. Additionally end-of-pipe treatment causes extra costs. Cleaner production (CP) on the contrary is a common sense approach: Instead of treating waste and emissions in end-of-pipe treatment plants, we try to define ways to prevent the production of the pollutants. This approach includes organisational changes, motivation and training for good housekeeping as well as changes in raw materials, process technology, internal and external recycling. The basic idea is a change of the end-of-pipe question: What shall we do with waste and emissions?” to the cleaner production question: “Where do waste and emissions come from and what can we do to prevent their production at the source?

=> Therefore this project will provide them with training on Cleaner Production give examples and experiences of theory and practice in other countries and the EU and introduce different managerial and technical options available.

=>The projects immediate aim is to train trainers to conduct these courses. Therefore the primary focus of the project is the development of skills, transfer of knowledge, creation of networks and provision of important equipment to the local partner, the University of Rijeka, to train staff as trainers on the identified priority areas Cleaner Production, Environmental Law, Energy and in soft skills, such as Communication and Project Management.

=> Therefore the core of this project consists of training 12 Croatian university and professional staff, and cooperatively developing 6 training courses with the European partners. The courses will be taught to the final target group at a fully-equipped training centre located at the University of Rijeka. The project is planned for a duration of three years and will involve a kick-off and a programme development meeting in Riejka, two-week training unit development for each module at the European partners, the EU partners as well as support in the initial trial training for the specialist trainers in Rijeka. Thereafter the training courses will run at regular intervals and be optimised according to experience and feedback.