Chapter 5: Slovakia

(continued)

5.4 Project Opportunities

Major Environmental Problems

1. Specific environmental problems, which include: heavily polluted sites; air pollution from coal and lignite-fired power stations; poor water quality and lack of wastewater treatment facilities (70 percent of the population is connected to drinking water supply, while only 50 percent of the population is connected to sewage treatment systems); groundwater contamination by industrial plants; improper storage of hazardous waste; existence of heavily polluted regions with compounded environmental problems.

2. Problems with the existing system for environmental protection, which include: lack of information about environmental projects, incomplete legislation, and poor dissemination of information.

3. Issues related to the financing of environmental projects, especially for high-quality and expensive environmental technologies. In this context, insufficient economic tools on the one hand, and the failure to use all the possibilities provided for in legislation on the other, were often mentioned.

Problems listed in the last two of the above categories are not environmental issues which could be solved by the use of environmental technologies, but they do represent barriers to growth of the environmental market.

As supplementary information, listed below are specific measures included in the National Environmental Action Plan (see Section 5.3):

Air and Energy

• Installation of desulfurization equipment at the coal-fired power plant in Zemianske Kostolany;
• Replacement of the boilers in the Zemianske Kostolany power plant with fluidized bed boilers;
• Co-generation power plants in Bratislava, Presov and Kosice;
• Switching to natural gas as the energy source in the sugar factory at Rimavska Sobota;
• Introduction of heating oil with a sulfur content of less than 1 percent;
• Use of geothermal energy in selected areas of Slovakia.

Water

• Upgrading of the water treatment plant, and disposal of phenols and cyanides, at VSZ Kosice; in the second phase, a new water treatment plant for the city of Kosice, and modernization of a wastewater neutralization/treatment plant at VSZ;
• Modernization and extension of the water treatment plant at Zvolen;
• Extension of the water treatment plant in Humenne; construction of a water treatment plant and a sewage collection and treatment system in Krompachy;
• Construction of sewage collection and treatment systems for the towns and villages of the Zitny Ostrov area;
• Construction of a water treatment plant and sewage collection and treatment system in the city of Trencin;
• Reconstruction and extension of the sewage collection and treatment system in Banska Bystrica.

Waste

• Collection, processing and safe disposal of hazardous waste from VSZ Kosice;
• Construction of a landfill for solid and hazardous waste from ZSNP in Ziar nad Hronom;
• Treatment and disposal of waste from PSB Brezova;
• Landfill for ashes and sludge from VSZ Kosice;
• Network of regional facilities for the disposal of waste from medical facilities;
• Construction of a regional incineration plant for hospital waste in the districts of Zilina and Liptovsky Mikulas;
• Waste management facilities in the leather processing plant in Liptovsky Mikulas;
• Remediation of the landfill of Halna-Krompachy-Kovohuty Krompachy;
• Recultivation of the industrial landfill at the ZSNP in Ziar nad Hronom;
• Recultivation of a part of the landfill in Sered;
• Remediation of a landfill at Petrochema Dubova.

Other

• Measures for the disposal of radioactive waste;
• Environmental improvements in the nine most contaminated or threatened areas in the country;
• Elimination of factors damaging forest eco-systems.

Significant Environmental Projects in Progress

• specific projects, including location;
• general activities, without an exact location (mainly of national importance).

The listed projects represent a whole spectrum of environmental activities, and include:

• Research into waste incineration and the measuring of emissions;
• Waste and water analysis, ecotoxicological tests, tests for biodegradability;
• State scientific and technological project "Collection and Regeneration of Organic Substances in the Consumer Industry";
• PHARE project on machinery noise levels (noise labeling) in line with EU regulations; introduction of the "CE" mark;
• Accreditation of a calibration laboratory by the British National Accreditation body NAMAS, British Know-How Fund;
• Preparation and implementation of projects for transportation and storage of waste products by so-called stabilization (products of traditional incineration, fluidized bed incineration, and desulfurization) at the Slovak Electricity Company Power Plant in Novaky-Zemianske Kostolany;
• Regional landfill for solid waste for about 80,000 inhabitants in the town of Topolcany and villages of the region;
• Recycling of PE bottles, compacting of mixed plastic waste;
• Modernization of procedures and technologies in water purification and wastewater treatment;
• Improvements in the water treatment plant at Zilina;
• Improvements in the water treatment plant at Stribske Pleso;
• System for monitoring the quality of landfill lining at the landfills in Spisska Nova Ves and Ziar nad Hronom; monitoring the influence of a sludge field near Hlohovec on underground waters and the river Vah; risk studies for old landfills in the district of Lucenec and Poltar;
• Water mains management information system in Bratislava;
• Turcek water reservoir, water management information system;
• Water management scheme in Zilina, and water management and information system in Nova Dubnica; heating energy optimatization and management;
• Chemosvit - modernization of production processes;
• Bukoza - modernization of production processes;
• Petrol stations - protection of the environment;
• Duslo Sala - introduction of advanced environmental technologies;
• National climate program;
• Geochemical atlas of the Slovak Republic, and soil analysis;
• Evaluation of environmental pollution in the Ziar valley (e.g. water, soils, sources of contamination);
• Development of a new absorber for the solar panel; research into improvements of mechanical and chemical properties of a selective conversion surface layer of the solar panel absorber;
• Cleaning up oil contamination of the soil at the location of the railway accident at Turna nad Bodvou;
• Disposal of heavy oil at VSZ Kosice;
• Processing of industrial rubber waste at Matador Puchov;
• Production line for composite plastic materials, Nitra;
• Management of the by-products of welding;
• Assistance in the preparation of the new Water Law;
• Pilot projects for monitoring and evaluation of water quality in border rivers;
• Environmental improvements at the heat generation plant in Slovnaft (boiler K3, boilers K7 and K8)
• Reconstruction and upgrading of the incineration plant in Bratislava; retrofitting of the energy source at Matador Bratislava; optimization of the heating system at Skloplast Trnava;
• Upgrading of aeration systems in municipal wastewater treatment plants;
• Development of a new aeration system for wastewater treatment;
• Treatment of oil-polluted industrial wastewater;
• Risk assessment at Slovnaft;
• Environmental impact assesment at Slovnaft, Novaky Chemical Plant;
• Hotel Borik, Zvolen castle, Hotel Bystrina - reconstruction of boiler houses, introduction of modern process control systems, upgrading of the heat distribution network;
• Decontamination of groundwater resources;
• Noise reduction at the drinking water pump station at Hanusovce nad Toplou;
• Post-closure revitalization of mining areas.

Only 20 percent of respondents declared that in the future they will continue projects similar to their current activities. About 60 percent of interviewed experts considered their future plans confidential, and 20 percent could not define their plans beyond present activities.

Major Sources of Information on Business Opportunities

Awareness of official sources of information was very limited, which reflects the fact that there indeed are few such sources in Slovakia. Respondents usually specified governmental organizations, such as the Ministry of the Environment (20 percent of respondents) and the Slovak Agency for the Environment (15 percent). About 10 percent of respondents listed organizations that are involved in information dissemination professionally, e.g. the Association of Industrial Ecology (ASPEK), the Slovak Inspectorate for Energy - Energy Agency, ALLDATA Slovakia Plus Ltd., and PB Consulting. Many organizations were mentioned only once. The most important sources are listed in Table 5.14.

Several respondents stated that they do not use official sources of information, and instead, have their own channels for information about projects. While no specific details were offered, in most cases those "own channels" were based on personal contacts.

For comparison, Table 5.11 presents the breakdown of major information sources, based on a 1995 survey of 150 environmental businesses in Slovakia carried out by the Regional Environmental Center.

Table 5.12 presents the main business and environmental publications in Slovakia read by environmental professionals, as identified in the same REC survey.

Finally, based on the 1995 survey, it can be said that the role of environmental and trade associations in Slovakia is very limited - more than half the respondents did not belong to any association. Only 18 percent of respondents belonged to the Slovak Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and 14 percent were members of the Association of Industrial Ecology (ASPEK)

Important Environmental Fairs

Table 5.13 lists the major environment-related fairs in Slovakia. Highlighted in bold are the events regarded by the respondents as those most important.

About 10 percent of interviewees specified smaller regional exhibitions, such as Interekotechnika in Bratislava, Ekotherm in Kosice, Ekoenergo in Kosice, Envirex in Banska Bystrica, and Ekostavby in Bratislava.

Some respondents also mentioned that they visit or participate in non-environmental fairs because of potential clients from a specific industry. The fairs mentioned include Incheba in Bratislava (chemical industry), Coneco in Bratislava (construction technologies), Klimatherm in Kosice (heating, air conditioning), Agrokomplex in Nitra, and Weldtech in Bratislava (welding technologies).

Interestingly, one in ten respondents participated in Envibrno, the most important Czech environmental fair.

Public Procurement Procedures

According to the current provisions, if the project value exceeds SK 100,000 (approx. USD 3,500) the investor is obliged to announce a project tender in the Commercial Bulletin of the Slovak Republic (Obchodny Vestnik). For projects with a value exceeding ECU 130,000 (approx. USD 150,000), the investor is required to publish a call for tender in foreign commercial periodicals.

In practice, most experts agree that the Slovak purchasing law is rather vague. Under the current rules, deadlines can be set too prematurely, meaning that potential bidders cannot respond in time unless they have advance knowledge of the project. Another way in which the law is circumvented is that a major proportion of project financing is earmarked for the participation of budget-funded enterprises, which is then exempt from public competitive tendering.

Overall, at this stage, the tenders announced in the Commercial Bulletin are not considered a useful source of information on business opportunities.

Useful Contacts

Sources of Information on Available Environmental Technologies

Approximately 30 percent of respondents noted that environmental technologies are approved at the Ministry of Environment, and they therefore assumed that, when needed, information can be obtained from governmental organizations.

Several interviewees considered catalogues of domestic and foreign environmental fairs to be an important source. Some also used specialized professional catalogues, available from the Slovak Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and from foreign embassies. Some respondents also mentioned professional magazines and conferences.

Representatives of governmental organizations usually did not answer the question on sources of information used in purchasing environmental technologies.