balkan insight
Albania should focus on managing locally produced waste, most of which is dumped illegally, instead of importing foreign trash for recycling, environmentalists say.
Besar LikmetaTirana
“If Albania has the capacity to recycle a certain amount of waste, such capacities should be directed at the waste produced locally,” said Anisa Xhitoni from the Eden Environmental Centre, commenting on a recent government decision to import foreign trash for recycling.
The government should first try harder to manage what is produced locally and often ends up in rivers or dumped on the side of the road, Xhitoni explained.
According to a 2005 UN survey on environmental performance, only about 50-70 per cent of urban waste in Albania is taken to landfills; the rest is simply dumped illegally. The government's decision, adopted in mid-October, will allow garbage on the so-called “green list” to be imported into Albania for recycling. The "green list" is based on the 1992 Basel Convention on the movement and disposal of hazardous waste, and includes 55 types of rubbish, from agricultural industry discharge to metal, glass, leather and plastics.
The government says the move to import waste will support the country’s nascent recycling industry, which has struggled because differentiated waste collection is not implemented by municipalities.
A similar plan to import several million tonnes of Italian garbage for processing and incineration, proposed in 2004 by the former Socialist government, sparked protests by a coalition of local civil society groups and business owners.
The agreement with the Italian company and the plans for the incinerator were eventually dropped.
balkan insight
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου