North Macedonia produces enormous quantities of waste that it has problems collecting it [infographic]

Year after year we are producing more and more communal waste, and almost one-third of the waste we produce loses its trail. According to the evaluations provided by the State Statistical Bureau, 915.943 tons of communal waste was produced last year in North Macedonia. The annual amount of generated communal waste in 2019 was 456 kilograms per person, which is a record since the beginning of publication of these data in 2008.

Out of the total produced waste, during last year, the municipality communal enterprises have collected 632.484 tons of communal waste or 1,1 % more as compared to 2018. When looking back over the years, during the past decade, the amount of collected waste have been growing and most of it (above 99 %) ends up at the municipality landfills throughout the country.

Still, what is worrisome is the data about the differences in numbers between the estimation of the statisticians about the produced communal waste and the waste collected from municipality’s enterprises, which only last year was 283.459 tons. These numbers include the whole waste that is created by the households and the companies and for which there is no official data of what is happening to it. Throughout the country, there are around 1.000 illegal landfills and their numbers vary constantly depending on whether the local municipalities are cleaning them, but also how much “effort” is invested by citizens in creation of new locations for dumping waste illegally.

Otherwise, North Macedonia was criticized for the catastrophic waste management from the European Commission as well. In the last North Macedonia 2020 Report , the European Commission criticized that the laws for waste management still haven’t been passed and the implementation of an integrated regional system for waste management in the country’s region is being postponed.

For years the building of one of the planned regional landfills isn’t starting. The building of these would allow a modern waste treatment including its recycling. The most advanced municipalities in the accomplishment of the regional waste management are the municipalities in the Eastern and Northeastern region and the building of the regional landfill at the Sveti Nikole municipality should start in 2021, informed for Meta.mk the Ministry for Environment and Planning last month.

Apart from destroying nature by polluting the soil and water, dumping waste at every corner throughout the country has been causing problems with air pollution during the winter period. Apart from illegally dumping waste at illegal landfills, the reckless’ citizens are burning the waste intentionally which contributes to the pollution of the air with dangerous particles.

source: Meta