Sharra landfill to become fully operational in few months

TIRANA, Nov. 8 – The Sharra landfill, Albania’s first modern waste disposal site situated outside Tirana, will be made fully operational during the first months of 2011 after the completion of its third and final phase, Transport and Public Works Minister Sokol Olldashi said last weekend during an inspection visit to the site.
The landfill, whose first two phases have been concluded enabling the Tirana municipality to deposit waste there for the past two years, is being implemented under an Italian government-funded project worth 6 million euros.
“I believe that under this project we provide a solution to a fundamental issue in Tirana, that of the urban waste treatment, a commitment made by this majority since 2005,” said minister Olldashi.
He called on Tirana Municipality, which is responsible for the site, to make sure that no persons collecting scrap to sell it, enter the site in order not to damage the project’s implementation.
Back in November 2007, just before the landfill’s construction started under a soft loan by the Italian Development Cooperation, Sharra used to be a dumpsite where waste was burned in the open air, listing it as an environmental hotspot causing lots of health problems to local inhabitants.
The 4.2 km2 site has a capacity to handle 1.9 million m3 of waste, according to transport ministry.