The administrator of the Eco-Elb company, Leli Kaja, who manages the waste treatment area in Elbasan, seems to have given up on putting the incinerator into operation once and for all, while considering the situation an emergency during an interpellation with the city's Municipal Council on July 29.
"A new landfill needs to be built. The amount of waste has managed to collapse some of the side slopes of the landfill," said Kaja, while accusing the municipal councilors of not helping him find a solution.
According to Kaja, over 150 tons of waste enter the landfill every day and it is impossible to organize this amount. “There will be danger again,” he warned.
Called due to the fire that broke out in early July, the interpellation with Kaja once again highlighted the deep crisis in waste treatment due to the failure of the government project with incinerators.
The Elbasan incinerator is the smallest of the three plants contracted through the public-private partnership scheme by the Albanian government and cost the state budget 26 million euros. Although the government boasted about the technology and solution it would offer in waste processing, the plant was started with a hitch and has been defective for years.
Since 2021, the waste treatment area in Elbasan has been managed by the public company Eco Elb, which took it under administration through a lease contract from the Agency for the Administration of Sequestered and Confiscated Assets.
But the public company was unable to get the incinerator up and running, while the mountain of garbage in the landfill next to it kept growing.
The new crisis in urban waste treatment is a side effect of corrupt incinerator contracts, which cost taxpayers over 150 million euros for plants with problems or that were never built.
Under these conditions, the Municipality of Elbasan is once again seeking government assistance to build a new landfill or expand the existing landfill.
The Mayor of Elbasan, Gledian Llatja, stated at the same Municipal Council meeting that the government's strategy forced them to send waste to the landfill, while adding that the municipality itself did not have the financial capacity to build a new one.
"We are unable to build a new landfill with the budget and we have reached out to the Albanian government to build the new landfill. We are all ready to look at other places for the new landfill," Llatja declared.
City councilors from both camps also see new investments as the only solution to end the environmental emergency with garbage.
Deputy Mayor Zamir Muzhaqi, who represents the right, stated that this was an immediate issue for the citizens of Elbasan that requires a solution.
"How can 250,000 tons of waste not alarm you, when the landfill's capacity is for 25,000 tons?" he said.
In more rounded language, socialist councilor Bukurosh Stafa said that the Municipality of Elbasan had no hand in the incinerator issue.
"We as a council have nothing else to do except for a new landfill. We propose that after a month, the municipality bring us a concrete proposal for a new landfill," he said./Reporter.al
