ALBANIA: No Time to Waste

TIRANA, Jul 19 - Albania cannot hope to become a major tourist destination unless it solves its waste management problem. Seeing this, authorities are wasting no more time in taking action.

Driving along the coast of the Adriatic and Ionian seas from capital Tirana to southern Butrint presents picturesque scenery, most impressively the high mountains reflected in the transparent sea of the southern riviera.

But a closer look reveals the destructive effects of human activity. Piles of trash, comprising very visibly beer bottles and plastic wrappers, are a common sight on the coast, even in remote pastures. There are not enough waste bins along the way, or at restaurants.

"One of the things tourists coming here complain most about is garbage," says Kate Yarhouse, working for Peace Corps USA for the promotion of tourism in Albania.

Albania's waste management facilities were overwhelmed by the rapid increase in consumption in the 1990s after the fall of state socialism and the consequent opening up of the country. Proper waste treatment systems were not set up. Garbage collection facilities since then have simply not coped with the mounting waste.

The sewage produced by Albanian cities ends up, untreated, in the sea. Merita Mansaku-Meksi, an expert in waste management working for the Environmental Centre for Development Education and Networking, warns that although the water is largely safe for swimmers at the moment, the situation is not sustainable.

"Not only is sewage water dumped into the sea, but also used oil from restaurants and industrial production, and this increases the danger," Mansaku-Meksi told IPS.

Arian Gace, national coordinator at the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Albania, says that most coastal towns in the country now have plans to develop sewage collection and treatment facilities. Kavaja, close to Tirana, has already built a modern system of sewage collection, with financial assistance from the German KfW Development Bank. But most municipalities are still at the planning stage.

The country faces similar problems with solid waste management. Traditionally, the authorities have simply dumped trash into empty fields close to the residential areas. Two decades ago, when the rates of consumption and waste production were much lower, the inappropriateness of the method passed unnoticed. Now, the trash is too much and too pollutant.

Over the past years, the authorities and specialised civil society organisations have started working their way through the problem of solid waste.

Fadil Nasufi, mayor of Berat, one of the most important towns in the country, says his municipality is preparing a plan to build an ecological waste processing system. The population will be charged a yearly tax for a solid waste plant to be built and operated close to the town.

The mayor offered few details about the project, or on how waste is being handled presently. But from the beautiful medieval castle towering over the town, one can see piles of trash emitting clouds of smoke.

The picture is similar in most Albanian cities. Capital Tirana and the nearby urban areas comprising the large city Durres dump their waste in nearby Shara fields. The population of the neighbouring villages is now getting increasingly concerned about the health risks arising from the garbage, and the municipality now plans to build a landfill.

Tirana is one of only three cities in Albania to have concrete plans for constructing a landfill. The other two are Vlora and Shkonder. The rest of the municipalities, like Berat, have good intentions, not projects on the way.

But people are becoming increasingly aware of the need to deal with the garbage ecologically. Xhemal Mato, executive director of the Ecomovement Centre sees hope in the successful campaign led by his organisation against the building of an incinerator for Tirana.

The authorities had signed an agreement with Italian company Albanianbeg Ambient for building such a plant. Under those plans, the Albanian government would support the cost of constructing the incinerator with credit from the Italian government. Given that an incinerator needs to be used at full capacity to operate properly, and that the trash produced by Tirana would only require 40 percent of the capacity, it was planned that Albanianbeg would bring waste from Italy to be incinerated in Albania.

But the local population did not want Italy's trash burnt in Tirana. Mobilised by NGOs, they staged protests against the incinerator and forced their politicians to cancel the deal. "We are not sure that this means the incinerator will never be built," Xhemal Mato told IPS. "But it is an important step for us."

Merita Mansaku-Meksi also has some small victories to boast in the battle against waste. Her NGO is running awareness campaigns about recycling in 14 schools in Tirana. She is also involved in a project to teach small local communities around the capital how to separate and recycle their trash.(END/2007)(IPS)