As consumption increases, so does the amount of waste we leave behind. Last year, 12 million tons of waste were generated in Serbia – 50 percent more than ten years ago. A negligible amount of waste is still processed, only about ten percent.
More than half of the total waste, seven million tons, is generated by burning fossil fuels to produce electricity. There is more and more municipal waste, last year 200,000 tons were generated in the settlements. Most of the waste goes to unregulated landfills.
More than half of the total waste, seven million tons, is generated by burning fossil fuels to produce electricity. There is more and more municipal waste, last year 200,000 tons were generated in the settlements. Most of the waste goes to unregulated landfills.
Filip Radovic, director of the Environmental Protection Agency of Serbia, says that the mission is to redefine the existing mechanism in the coming period in order to make it easier for companies to provide resources, and that is what is called green digitalization.
According to him, it is necessary to use the funds created from the collection of environmental taxes in the direction that would satisfy the capacities of the recycling industry of Serbia.
“Today, Serbia invests insufficiently in car recycling, and that is something we will work on,” Radovic said.
Of the 100 million euros that were collected from the environmental tax last year, only ten million euros were spent specifically to help the recycling industry.
Sinica Mitrovic, the head of the PKS Center for Circular Economy, points out that investors from all over the world cannot be brought into the production of tires, the automobile industry, the electrical industry, without knowing what to do with that waste.
“At the moment, there are companies that cannot solve the issue of their waste. The state must set aside a part of its incentive funds for new investments in waste treatment in the Republic of Serbia,” Mitrovic said.
Thousands of companies in Serbia process waste
In Serbia, about a thousand companies are engaged in waste processing. Aleksandar Milovic from the Eco Union from Stara Pazova sees the development of the company through investing in recycling.
“One of the investments is a public-private partnership with local governments on the issue of removing the landfill, a plant that would produce synthetic gas from low-quality material, ie waste, by processing. This gas would be used for both energy and hydrogen and heat,” explains Milovic.
He adds that the second project is a foundry in Stara Pazova, but their real brakes are commercial banks that do not recognize the recycling sector in terms of investment.
Recycling companies, due to the lack of a collection system, often import scrap metal, wood, paper, and some secondary raw materials that could be processed are exported, RTS reports.
