Austrian capital invested in construction of regional landfill in Leskovac for trash from whole south Serbia

In the location of Željkovac, in the vicinity of Leskovac, Regional sanitary landfill for several cities and municipalities in the south of Serbia was opened on Friday (October 9, 2009), and the ribbon was cut by Oliver Dulić, the Minister of Environment Protection. He said that it was the first European regional sanitary landfill in Serbia, which occupied the surface of 80 ha.

The first phase of construction of the landfill was financed by Austrian company "Porr, Werner & Weber" with 8m EUR, and Austrians intend to invest another 28m EUR in the next two phases of construction.

Miniter Dulić said that the successful construction of that landfill for the needs of cities and municipalities in the south of Serbia had busted the myths that few different representatives of the people can not gather around the joint project and that several political currents can not work on it. He added that Serbia would get more such landfills in the future.

- Otherwise, we will be flooded by trash and poisoned from what we create and throw to scrapyards since all the chemicals and harmful matters from the latter end in our water, air and food - said Dulić.

The Mayor of Leskovac, Slobodan Kocić, reminded that water system "Barje" would be put in trial operation few days later, and that trial boring would be made at the depth of 1,500 meters in spring 2010 because, according to the expert estimates, geothermal waters can be found there. He also said that the construction of the Central waste water treatment unit should commence in spring as well.

- We intend to turn Leskovac basin into "Small California" - said Kocić, while Minister Dulić added that, in that case, the citizens of Leskovac would not be able to hide from investors.
The first trucks loaded with trash will be unloaded in the location of new landfill on Monday, and the CEO of "Porr, Werner & Weber" in Serbia, Slobodan Cvetković, announced realization of the second and the third phase of construction, which includes, among the rest, construction of a recycling center, an asylum for dogs, additional investments in machines, as well as a space for composting waste. The whole job should be finished prior to mid-2010.

City to subsidize part of bills

The Mayor of Leskovac, Slobodan Kocić, said that "Porr, Werner & Weber", which would be exploiting the landfill within the next 25 years, had asked for the prices of services to be increased by over 100%, which the city had found unacceptable. The increase in prices concerns only the service of trash disposal, which is charged together with the service of trash collecting. The households with larger number of members will be the first to feel the impact because the anticipated price amounts to 50 RSD per member of a household. Kocić said that the city would subsidize certain share of those bills.