A new era begins in the management, collection and disposal of waste in Tirana starting from today. Tirana will apply for the first time the differentiated waste collection, and therefore new modern containers will be installed across the city, divided into waste categories.
The memorandum signed between the Municipalities of Tirana and Verona provides for the establishment of Eco Tirana, a joint public enterprise (JSC), with a cooperation ratio 51% for the Municipality of Tirana and 49% for the Municipality of Verona. Eco Tirana will create real opportunities to intervene in the current scheme of this service, initially by restructuring the park of waste in order to provide a much more qualified service in all indicators, and therefore improve environmental indicators that are very important in this process.
Mayor Erion Veliaj said that this new agreement, which is totally a public partnership, will fulfil the ambition to transform Tirana in the cleanest city in the Balkans.
“We have an active company starting from today. Half is owned by the Municipality of Verona and half is owned by the Municipality of Tirana. We have heard a lot about the Public-Private Partnership, but for the first time we are experimenting a Public-Public Partnership. But, this is a company that operates with the ethics and the accountability of a private company. Our ambition is to start by collecting waste and cleaning the city of Tirana, which, we must admit, today is cleaner than a year ago, but it is still far from our ambition to have the cleanest city in the Balkans, just as Verona is the cleanest city in Italy. But the citizens of Tirana must be guaranteed that they will pay the same fee for cleaning, the same unchanged fee to receive a much better service than the one they are provided today”, Mayor Veliaj said.
The Mayor of Tirana explained that through this agreement, in the capital city the differentiation of waste at source will be implemented for the first time.
“We’ll start with the centre of Tirana, the area we call the red zone, the zone within the ring, and then we will expand across the city territory. We will not limit to the cleaning and collection of waste, but for the first time we will introduce the concept of separate collection at source. Of course, we will invest in new containers, modern equipment, qualified staff, but we will spend the same energy for culture, just like we are doing for infrastructure and machinery, in order to educate children, young people, families and all citizens how to be partners and collaborators of this public company. The expansion plan envisages that after 18 months the whole territory of Tirana will be covered by our new company “Eco Tirana”, a public company. And all this without adding a penny to the existing cleaning fee in Tirana” Veliaj explained.
Mayor of Verona Flavio Tosi said that Albania is on a path of deep transformation and major reforms, and with regard to the agreement, he noted that this is only the beginning of a common journey that will improve the quality life of the citizens.
“When Prime Minister Rama and Mayor Veliaj proposed us this collaboration we, as city of Verona, as company, as AGSM group, as AMIA group, felt proud that we were asked this collaboration. We felt proud because Prime Minister Rama – and you can tell this in Italy – is accompanying the country in a deep transformation path of major reforms. A person with strong determination, a great competence and courage, who, with his personality and charisma, is imposing on Albania a major transformation to take it with full rights in the European parameters. I absolutely agree that this is just the beginning, because for us who will work with an Italian leadership, given that the “know-how” is Italian, but with Albanian employees, we will try to develop jointly, we will pay a great and special attention to this joint path of development, because the fact that Verona, Italy, together with Albania, can mutually improve the conditions and the quality of life of our citizens is for us really something to be proud of. Verona is honoured to be by your side, together with the Municipality of Tirana, represented by its mayor on this joint development path”, Mayor Tosi said.
Prime Minister Edi Rama, who was present at the signing of this memorandum, said that this agreement is only the first step towards a success story, in an area previously unexplored, which is the differentiation of waste at source in our country.
“A great story of efficiency, transparency and success, which for me means even more hope for what we can do together here in Albania. This is a very important enterprise also in terms of innovation, a company that uses a technology that is modern, completely green and with a highly advanced and efficient system of surveillance and identification in the area where it operates.
Today we are still in the midst of a heated debate about recycling, so it is about time to give a strong example because, on the one hand we have a very important national, public interest, to support the light Albanian industry of green waste recycling, but on the other hand we also need to build a new system to transform citizens into partners in this activity which is an important economic activity for the recycling enterprises, but above all it is a civic activity for a healthy and clean environment that creates employment, creates clean jobs and makes the economy stronger”, Prime Minister Rama noted.
On the other hand, the Prime Minister said that this initiative will increase the amount of recycled waste in Albania.
“Today we have a recycling industry that works only with 30% of its logistical and technical capacity, due to a moratorium we issued in 2013 on all waste that was imported in Albania. However, during this period we have managed to bring this industry closer to our problem, and the amount of what is recycled today in Albania is not an indifferent figure: 120 thousand tons per year from this local industry which has invested 273 million euros in buildings and technology over the years. But, of course, this is a figure that we should overmatch. The enterprise of excellence, which Mayor Tosi, with a truly great generosity sent offshore to try and do something in Albania, is here today and is a partner under contract with the Municipality of Tirana, and I have no doubt that it will be a success story”, Prime Minister Edi Rama said. The agreement was welcomed by the Ambassador of Italy, Alberto Cutillo, who defined it another milestone in the economic relations between the two countries.
“This evening marks another significant development in the relations between Italy and Albania. This cooperation that we want to celebrate today was born as an agreement signed between the mayors of Tirana and Verona in December last year, agreement that applies especially to the sector of collection, treatment and elimination of waste, but that is open also to the development in other sectors. Tirana has now the important task to manage the collection and disposal of urban solid waste, with an aim at bringing here the best practices”, ambassador Cutillo said.
The agreement signed between the Municipality of Tirana and the Municipality of Verona aims at the restructuring of models and the distribution of containers in the territory of the city, allowing in this way for the first time to start in the territory the separated waste collection. In addition, under this agreement the aim is to start collection of waste door to door according to specifications, at the beginning with the economic operators, and then with families, where the service cannot interfere with technological tools.
