Waste to Energy : BCE to complete Serbia's first waste-to-energy plant in November 2022

In an effort to show a responsible approach to environmental protection but also to the circular economy and green transition Serbia has already closed the old landfill "Vinca" near its capital Belgrade last August and opened a landfill for disposal and recycling of construction waste.

The Belgrade landfill reached the ecological black list because more than five billion cubic metres of methane were emitted into the atmosphere in the last 45 years, Prime minister Ana Brnabić explained in a statement. "The citizens of Belgrade generate between 1,500 and 1,600 tons of municipal waste per day, which has been deposited in an unconditional and unsanitary landfill for 45 years, which is why we had many problems, but we were also the cause of greenhouse gas emissions and one of the biggest polluters in Europe."

The project of arranging the sanitary landfill, as she pointed out, is the largest environmental project in Serbia, which is being done through a public partnership with Beo Cista Energija, a consortium formed by French utility company Suez, Japanese conglomerate Itochu and pan-European equity fund Marguerite Fund, through the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and founded especially for that purpose.

Next is the construction of a waste-to-energy plant for the incineration of municipal waste, which will be completed in November 2022. After the completion Belgrade will have ten percent of total thermal energy five percent of electricity from waste, said the Prime Minister. The last project is the construction of a wastewater treatment plant. "There are 492 such plants in Europe. It is in line with the best EU standards, and for the first time in Serbia, we will get heat and electricity from waste," said Brnabić.