RECIKLIRAJ Aleksandra Anić Vučinić

The idea of a circular economy has become universally accepted, yet the practicalities of implementing it often meet with public resistance and political inertia. Aleksandra Anić Vučinić, a professor at the Geotechnical Faculty and president of the Croatian Waste Management Association, navigates this gap between ideal and reality daily. Her faculty is not just discussing environmental engineering; it has spent a decade transforming its core mission to train the very specialists needed for this shift. Yet, she points to the disconnect between public expectations and the complex, long-term investments required. Vučinić unpacks why Croatia, despite good intentions, struggles with waste management — from the political short-sightedness that stalls decade-long projects to the populist narratives that oversimplify the issue for the public. She reveals how seemingly simple solutions are often undermined by unseen costs and the complexities of international procurement, even in EU-funded projects. The conversation challenges the easy assumptions about waste, revealing how public perception, political cycles, and even the very definition of 'recycling' shape progress. Readers will gain a clearer understanding of the hidden forces that make waste management one of the most politically charged and technically demanding public policy challenges, and why genuine progress demands a reckoning with uncomfortable truths about cost, complexity, and continuity.