Background The construction sector in Croatia produces 2 million tonnes of construction and demolition (C&D) waste. Due to a lack of adequate recycling facilities and a lack of an organised and economically sustainable waste management system, only a small part of the waste is properly disposed, while the recycling and re-use percentage is below 5%. Though such waste has a high environmental impact, penalties and incentives are insufficient to change polluters’ behaviour. To comply with Council Directive 75/442/EEC on waste disposal and recovery, Croatia needs to develop its domestic regulations and conditions for effective implementation of waste management. Objectives The main objective of the CONWAS project was to assist the ministry of environment in establishing a sustainable system for construction and demolition waste management. Groups of landfill sites and waste dumps with similar characteristics would be selected for analysis of waste recycling potential. For the pilot region of Zagreb, collected material would be recycled in a pilot recycling plant on the Jakusevac landfill. Possibilities for reusing the construction and demolition waste would be explored and recommendations for technical characteristics of recycling plants would be outlined. Results The CONWAS project resulted in a thorough overview of the present state of C&D waste, in order to enable informed decision-making during the legislation process and to establish a firm foundation for sustainable waste management in Croatia. Another key result of the project was the identification of optimal waste management technologies and the establishment of the most effective continuous waste chains from the place of production to the end users of reusable materials and final disposal of non-reusable residues. The project contributed to the checking of all registered landfills and many wild, unregistered ones. This included designing and sending questionnaires to about 300 affected communes and the visit of more than 1270 locations by the project team. Several pilot activities were initiated, separating C&D waste into different compounds. In addition, the project created a waste database that contains checked and updated figures from the field. A new waste management plan, the Croatian National Waste Management Plan (NWMP), was adopted by the environment ministry in June 2007, and includes the data collected by the LIFE project. Standard calculations were developed to support optimisation of waste management on building/deconstruction site and recycling plant. The beneficiary agreed with the environment ministry on further steps for collaborating on C&D waste management, and established continuous communication with the environment agency. Finally, the project developed and implemented education and awareness-raising tools that will support overall environmental policy and legislation enforcement. Further information on the project can be found in the project's layman report (see "Read more" section).