In some parts of Belgrade, even finding recycling bins can be quite an exercise. With just 39 across the city most Belgraders simply choose to throw out waste that in many countries across the world would be recycled. If by some chance you do find a site, make sure you don’t take glass bottles and jars as there is now nowhere in the city to take them.
Although the city’s waste management department, Gradska cistoca, put out recycling bins for plastic (PET), metal and paper over a year ago, glass can still not be recycled as there is no local market for it.
“The thing is that... primary raw materials are quite cheap. A glass factory in Paracin made an offer to buy glass for recycling at just 1 dinar per kilo, but for that amount we cannot afford to even transport the glass waste,” explains Ilija Djordjevic, manager for recycling at Gradska cistoca.
Djordjevic further says that though there aren’t any glass bins in the city, residents can still collect glass and contact their municipality in order to properly dispose the waste.
With a little effort, the citizens can recycle plastic, metal and paper, but it seems that many aren’t sufficiently environmentally aware.
“In Belgrade, the number of people who separate waste and use recycling facilities is rather low,” says Djordjevic.
Elsewhere, people have been cajoled through a mixed system of penalties and incentives, be that deposits on returnable bottles, or financial incentives for separating waste or indeed penalties for not doing so. In some European countries the use of such measures has increased the recyclable percentage of household waste up to 90 per cent.
Here in Serbia, the picture is reversed, with only 10 per cent of waste being recycled. However, the ministry of environment and spatial planning has recorded a sharp increase of companies involved in recycling waste since 2003.
“The ministry of environment and spatial planning has issued 107 licences. However, 20 per cent of firms carry out recycling activities, while the other companies are only involved in collecting and transportation of waste,” says assistant minister Aleksandar Vesic.
Recycling one ton of paper saves about 17 trees, 32,000 gallons of water and about 4,000 KW of electricity and the latest data for recycled paper per capita shows that while Bulgarians collect 60 kg, Romanians 80 kg and Slovenians 200 kg, in Serbia the figure is 35 kg. Another 85,000 tons of paper end up in landfill.
Worldwide the recycling industry is valued at 160 billion dollars and employs more than 1.5 million people. More than 600 million tons of waste is recycled and traded but according to the Serbian Association for Recycling, in the last year just 37 new jobs were created and more than 200,000 tons of various plastic materials were disposed of.
Although Gradska cistoca, the City government and the national government have put together strategic plans which envisage recycling centres in the city these are, at least in part, reliant on access to cash from various international funding bodies.
Glass makes up 10 per cent of household waste and because its structure does not deteriorate when reprocessed, its one of the rare materials that can be recycled indefinitely. If it’s not recycled, a glass bottle can take more than 4,000 years to decompose. In many countries there is an increased demand for recycled glass known as ‘cullet’ in the glass industry, because it costs much less than the raw material used to manufacture glass from scratch. Recycled glass also uses less energy than manufacturing glass from sand, lime and soda. Recycling of one glass bottle can save enough energy to light a 100 watt bulb for 4 hours.
In order to increase the amount of recycled waste, Gradska cistoca introduced ‘Eco bags’ in the municipality of Savski venac. 120 litre bags were delivered to the home address of every resident of Savski venac. Residents are encouraged to collect paper, metal and plastic in the bags, for sorting and separating by employees of Gradska cistoca. Once a week, bags left in front of the apartments are collected by the city’s cleaning department. Officials express themselves satisfied with the results so far and are planning to introduce this programme in the Stari grad, Zvezdara, Palilula and Vracar districts.
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