Description
Founders (owners):
- The Šoštanj Thermal Power Plant (30%)
- The Velenje Colliery (30%)
- The Jožef Stefan institute, Ljubljana (30%)
- The Gorenje, d.d., Velenje (10%)
Status: non profit, non governmental, non public institute
Staff:
63employees
Researchers:
- 5 Ph. D.
- 9 M. Sc.
- 23 B. Sc.
Technicians:
- 18
History
The beginning of environmental research, reaches back to 1986, when in co-operation with the Jožef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana studies of Velenje lake began, and plans for its restoration were made. A year later, in May 1987, within the framework of the R & D group of the Mining and Power Group Velenje an ecological research group was founded. The main aims of the group were to analyse the quality of the local environment in the Šalek Valley as well as to find and propose solutions to improve environmental damages caused by coal-mining and electricity production. In 1987 there were only five employees in the research group. In 1992 the environmental research group developed in-to the research organisation ERICo Velenje, which employed 12 people. ERICo became an institute in July 1995 with 17 employees. In 1998 the institute was divided in four departments. In the spring 1999 the institute moved to a new building with new modern equipped laboratories and in Jun employs 46 people. In October 2004 are 63 employees.
Departments
Five departments were established due to different activities of the institute in the beginning of 1999.
- Management and administration department
- Research department
- Technical consulting department
- Environmental education department
- Laboratory
Current projects:
- the accumulation of cadmium, lead and zinc in different vegetables from Zasavje, Koroška and Šalek Valley.
- sorption phenomena in lignite at different states in combination with gas migration processes,
- study of cadmium input in soil of Šalek Valley area,
- the heavy metal pollution in soil near the traffic roads,
- effects of photo oxidants in the air on agricultural plants in Slovenia,
- bio-monitoring of forest ecosystems after reduction of SO2 emission from The Šoštanj Thermal Power Plant,
- the quality of medical herbs and vegetables in Zavodnje,
- heavy metal burdens in wildlife tissues from polluted areas of Slovenia (Šalek Valley, Zasavje and Koroška region).
INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION
- ICP-Forest,
- ICP-Crops,Vegetation,
- COST E6 EUROSILVA, forest tree physiology research,
- 5th framework program EU.
Technical advisory department
This department mainly co-operates with the industry, local communities and government. ERICo Velenje is authorized for monitoring the waste water and soil as well as for environment impact assessment by the Slovenian Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning. We carry out the following activities for our customers:
- environmental projects for industry and local community,
- environment impact assessment (85/337/EEC)
- different monitoring of waste water, surface water,
- monitoring of precipitation,
- consultation and education for the Local Agenda 21,
- monitoring of air in underground Velenje mine,
- monitoring of the municipally waste landfill,
- monitoring of the fly-ash landfill,
- monitoring of the underground industry waste deposits,
- characterisation of waste (leaching tests),
- environmental improvement programmes (air, water, soil),
Environmental education department
This department was established in 1998 and it is the youngest department of the institute. The main purpose of the department is to educate different groups of people in the way of sustainable development. However, education is only one of objectives of the department, as followed:
- environmental education projects for different groups (lectures, summer schools, excursions),
- different sociological researches,
- geographical information systems,
- consultation and education for the ISO 14001
