First mobile unit for recycling mercury-containing light bulbs in Serbia in operation from March 2010

- The first mobile unit in Serbia for recycling fluorescent and other light bulbs should be put in operation in March 2010 - Nikola Egić, the CEO of BIS Recycling Center, told eKapija.

BIS Recycling Center in Pančevo procured that machine in October 2009, but, due to complicated procedures, the unit is most likely to be put in operation next month.

As Egić explained, in order to continue good practice of the EU countries and bring the business in accordance with EU's norms, BIS Recycling Center decided to expand the portfolio of its services and enable citizens and the economy sector to act in compliance with the Law on waste management, article 51, which stipulates that the waste mercury-containing fluorescent bulbs must be collected separately for treatment and final disposal.

- We decided to procure mobile machine because the transportation of whole lamps always leads to crushing of 3% of the whole quantity, that is, 30 out of 1,000 lamps are crushed without the mercury emission control. In order to eliminate this problem, we have enabled treatment of whole lamps on the spot thanks to the mobility of crusher-machine. It reduces the volume of lamps by 80% and enables safe transport of five times bigger quantity to the central recycling unit, which also significantly cuts the transportation and other costs.

(Nikola Egić)

Glass waste of lamps and bulbs is safely collected in metal barrels of 210 liters, which can hold about 130 kg of glass waste, or in special PVC bags that can hold between 50 and 60 kg of such waste. Collected in this way, glass waste is safely disposed in special storage space until its final treatment.

The crusher-machine is equipped with special filters and reservoirs for separation of fractions of phosphoric powder and mercury from bulbs. This machine processes 1,000 lamps per hour, that is, 10,000 lamps per day.

The crusher-machine for recycling neon bulbs is imported from Great Britain, from company Balcan, in September 2009. Since then, it has only been turned on at Ecofair in Belgrade.

BIS Recycling Center entered the realization of this investment alone, but, according to Nikola Egić, it is an illusion to expect from the private sector to enter the realization of new technological projects in the field of environment protection without the partnership with the state because there is no guarantee that such projects will be implemented in the near future or even implemented at all.

- The biggest problems are slow procedures for passing sublegal acts of the Government of Serbia for special disposal of waste. Without the organized stimulus system for collecting the waste that contain dangerous matters, the result of the waste collecting is extremely small. Upon the adoption of aforementioned acts, we can expect the system to be defined and collecting of bigger quantities of such waste to start. The current quantities of collected waste in Serbia are insignificant when compared to the EU standards - said Egić.