Greece is among EU member states at risk of not meeting the 2025 preparing for re-use and recycling targets for municipal and all packaging waste and the 2035 landfilling target, according to a Commission’s report.The worst thing is that the situation is not going to improve when, among other things, the planning for waste management in Attica, where half of the country’s population lives, has not yet entered the implementation phase.
Most of Attica’s waste ends up at Fili’s landfill site, which is a saturated area being the “receiver” of almost all the region’s waste. Meanwhile the regional authorities have not yet come to agreement on the the location of the Waste Treatment Units (WTUs) that now have to be converted into Recovery and Recycling Factories because in the meantime the relevant instructions in the EU have changed.
The tenders for two projects with an initial budget of 761.9 million euros (Waste Treatment Unit-Central Park of Circular Economy and Waste Treatment Unit-Piraeus) were re-announced in June 2021.
The interested companies as joint ventures (Terna Energy-Titan, Motor Oil-Avax-Thalis, Mytilineos – Mesogheios, Helector – Aktor Concessions and Intrakat – Watt – Geocycle Hellas) responded to the call for expressions of interest but since then there is no progress regarding the completion of the procedures for the selection of the entities that will build the necessary units.
Based on the objectives set by 2025, EU member countries need to achieve at least: the preparation for reuse and recycling of 55% of municipal waste. The recycling of 65% of all packaging waste, and packaging waste recycling targets for specific materials: 75% for paper and cardboard, 70% for glass, 50% for aluminium, 50% for plastic and 25% for the wood. Also by 2035 the waste that ends up in a landfill should be less than 10% of the total.
