Brno - Increasing amounts of waste along with the planned changes in legislation are causing a boom in the waste management business. Both cities and companies want to invest billions into waste liquidation and use.
New Waste Logistic Centre has recently launched operation in the Moravian city of Vsetín, in which the local town hall invested 200 million CZK. This waste processing centre serves about 70,000 people.
Everybody building
"The first and most expensive thing is the construction of facilities and reinforced areas with the separation line, communal waste terminal, salvage yard, paper and plastic store, sorted and dangerous waste stores, boxes for temporal storing of rubbish and a protected shop for the disassembly of electronics, refrigerators, etc.," Vsetín Deputy Mayor Jaromír Kudlík names the list of things that need to be built.
Similarly to Vsetín, also the town of Krnov wants to invest into a city waste centre. The centre is to cost 100 million CZK.
Moreover, all over the country the construction of dozens of biogas stations and compost houses is under way. These will use waste for the production of heat and power.
Both big companies and agricultural unions want to invest into them.
EU funds available
Czech company A.S.A., with revenues of nearly 3 billion CZK is the strongest company in the Czech waste branch.
A.S.A has compost houses in Tisová dump in the Karlovy Vary region and is constructing other compost houses in Brno area. The company also wants to construct a biogas station that could process outdated food including packing.
A biogas station will be constructed in the location of the former pre-cast concrete works in the industrial part of Hodonín. The invested sum will be 180 million CZK.
Companies can also get additional hundreds of millions of CZK from EU funds. Aktuálně.cz has found out that in the case of new waste liquidation centres, investments of billions of CZK will be at stake.
Unique European project
Agricultural company SP Poběžovice soon launches a three-year construction of wasteless large swinery worth 0.5 billion CZK, which makes it a unique project across Europe.
The output of breeding 11,500 animals will not only be meat but also power, heat and distilled water.
At the beginning of the year, the station in Úpice in Hradec Králové region also launched operation.
For the 56 million CZK project, Úpice received funds from the EU, Hradec Králová region and the state. More than 6,000 tons of waste should be transformed there into biogas every year.
Future in recycling
The Czech Republic produces more than 24 million tons of waste a year. At the moment, most of it ends up in dumps. However, new legislation should change this.
From 2009 on, the Ministry of Environment wants to push through an amendment to the Waste Act that should clearly define the new priorities of waste liquidation for both citizens and municipalities.
Recycling will be most profitable, burning will follow. Incinerators will newly have to pay 200 CZK per each burned ton of waste. Dumps will be least profitable: 1,500 CZK will have to be paid for each dumped ton of waste.
