The mayor of the capital Valdas Benkunskas says that incinerating waste at the Vilnius Cogeneration Plant (VKJ) is the most realistic alternative if waste sorting cannot be resumed in the region in the near future.
"If we don't have additional sorting capacities, there won't be any alternative ways that suddenly appear where we can sort, we can manage waste in two ways. One is to take it to a landfill, which in my opinion is the worst option from an environmental and cost perspective. The alternative is to burn unsorted waste in a cogeneration plant," he said in an interview with BNS on Tuesday. V. Benkunskas.
"This hasn't started yet, but it's the most realistic option that we can do for a while," he said.
According to him, answers are still awaited from the Energesman company on when it could install additional sorting capacities at the Vilnius region waste sorting plant site that was not damaged by the fire.
"When we have more answers from Energesman, (…) then we will be able to have a specific schedule of what happens after what, in what period," said the head of the capital.
According to V. Benkunskas, discussions are currently underway with the National Crisis Management Center and the Ministry of the Environment to control the situation. A decision on the permit to burn unsorted waste at the VKJ is expected on Tuesday.
According to the law, only sorted waste can be burned in a cogeneration plant.
"The main thing is that the waste collection function is not disrupted in any way, the service is running according to schedule, and people have not had any changes in this area, so everything is in order," the mayor said.
According to him, the ability to transport garbage for sorting to waste management centers in neighboring regions is currently not a priority for the municipality.
"Now we are talking about what we can do locally, with private capacity, and how we can create new capacities to sort waste," said V. Benkunskas.
As BNS reported, it is planned to re-sort some of the waste at the burned Vilnius factory in the coming days, once the electricity supply is restored.
According to Energesman CEO Algirdas Blazgis, this cannot be done yet, as firefighters and environmentalists are still working on the site.
Once the electricity supply is restored, the plant will operate at 40 percent capacity, and the remaining 60 percent of waste is planned to be sorted using mobile equipment starting next week.
Fire A fire broke out at a waste sorting plant in the Vilnius region on Sunday morning. It was extinguished on Monday. The fire burned down about 7,5 thousand square meters of the building.
The plant operated by Energesman sorts approximately 220 thousand tons of mixed and food waste per year.
The aforementioned plant is the main place where waste is sorted in the region. Municipal waste is brought to it from eight municipalities: Vilnius city, Vilnius, Trakai, Elektrėnai, Ukmergė, Švenčionys, Šalčininkai and Širvintos districts.
Author Vilmantas Venckūnas
