Bringing back waste imports, how new bill lobbied to favor two cement companies

The government's "Rama" waste import bill favors the country's two cement companies and less the battered recycling industry, while environmental activists oppose it as a clientelistic bill.

In a hotel room in Tirana on May 3, representatives from the cement manufacturing and paper and plastic recycling industries sat at a table with senior representatives of the government and the Assembly, Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku, Minister of Tourism and Environment, Mirela Kumbaro , the chairman of the Committee for Economy, Eduard Shalsi and the chairman of the Committee for Production, Trade and Environment, Arben Pëllumbi.

The topic of the roundtable was "Competitiveness Challenges", but the meeting discussed 3 demands of the Albanian Producers' Association for the removal of the liquid gas excise duty, for enabling the import of alternative fuels (RDF/SRF) in favor of the industry. cement production and the import of waste for the manufacturing and recycling industries.

Senior government and parliament officials vowed to address producers' demands through a new draft law, opening the "Pandora's box" of waste imports, nearly 11 years after the Rama government boasted of the act of banning import and after a failed attempt in 2016 to undo this promise.

Shalsi even spoke about the readiness of the Assembly to pass the proposals "quickly", accusing the civil society of having prevented the import of waste.

"We are ready to accelerate rapidly for all 3 of these initiatives," said Shalsi, while asking business representatives to raise awareness against the importation of waste. "Those who are really concerned about the environment, because there are charlatans among them," he said.

Albania has debated initiatives by three governments over the past twenty years that aimed to allow the import of waste, all of which failed due to popular protests.

The first initiative came from former Prime Minister Fatos Nano, who approved a concession contract for an incineration plant for the controversial Italian businessman Francesco Becchetti. In 2011, the government of Prime Minister Sali Berisha passed a law allowing import and granted licenses for waste imports, according to the format of the current proposal. Prime Minister Edi Rama, at the time when he was in the opposition, campaigned extensively promising to remove the possibility of legal import of garbage in Albania, a decision he took in the first days of his first mandate in 2013.

In 2016, Rama changed his mind and decided to allow the import of garbage again, but after civil society protests, the socialists gave up the initiative a year later.

The latest initiative, published on the public consultation page, favors the country's cement production industry, represented by only two companies in the market, and less the hard-hit recycling industry.

At the meeting held on May 3, the representative of "Titan Cement", Dritan Nako, expressed his gratitude to the government and called its initiative "avant-garde".

"It is the first time that we see the government willing that such a development is necessary and timely," he said, while adding: "the proposals were examined in detail, drafts and by-laws have been prepared."

Asked if the cement industry was the main beneficiary of the import of waste, Arben Shkodra, general secretary of the Union of Albanian Manufacturers, told BIRN that "the law is not being made for 2 companies", but fulfilling a demand of the manufacturers for benefited from the possibility of importing new materials that would help the process. According to him, it was about subjects that are part of the green list allowed by the EU.

"I can say that the industries interested in secondary raw materials are the following: metal processing, paper processing, plastic processing," said Shkodra, adding that "cement factories are interested in alternative fuels RDF/SRF".

Allowing the import of waste has also been an early request of the recycling industry, which this time is not very enthusiastic.

The head of the Association of Recyclers, Vullnet Haka, told BIRN that a large part of this industry has gone out of business and their hope at the table with the government is "the return of economic activity".

"Our main demand is to implement integrated waste management, to get the main raw material from the country," said Haka. "Import is complementary, but the needs cannot be met by import alone because of the cost of transportation," he added.

The draft law that restores the import of waste is opposed as clientelistic by representatives of environmental organizations and raises questions about the risk it carries for the environment.

Olsi Nika, executive director of EcoAlbania, told BIRN that, "behind this initiative is the same lobby, who see everything as a business and not as a mission".

He suggests that to keep this industry afloat, the government should set up and operate an efficient domestic waste management system.

"If the analysis of the economic and environmental costs will also prove the need for import, then maybe this discussion can be opened again" - he says, adding that "for now it is just a clientelistic initiative and that's it"./ BIRN