Pirot soon to get recycling depot and mobile construction waste treatment plant

A construction waste recycling depot is to be built in Pirot, where a plant that will treat construction waste in several phases will be installed. As announced by the city of Pirot, this is an innovative project, one of the results of which will be a mobile plant that will have the function of crushing, screening, separating, purifying and washing waste material, so that it can then participate in the production of high-quality secondary products and materials.

The waste will be processed at various locations, including large construction sites, it was announced at the conference on the project “MOBICCON PRO – Mobile and Innovative Circularity for Construction Products” within the Horizon Europe program, within which the planned works will be carried out.

The City of Pirot is implementing the MOBICCON PRO project in a consortium with organizations from France, Belgium, Denmark and Bulgaria, and the lead partner is the Bulgarian company Glavbolgarstroy Holding. It is an international research project in the field of circular economy in construction with a focus on the development and implementation of innovative models in the treatment of construction waste.

According to Marija Djosic, Head of the Office for Local Economic Development, the MOBICCON PRO project is one of the strategic projects that began in December 2022 and will last five years.

– Construction waste is a major problem throughout Europe, including in Pirot, and we are trying to solve it in an innovative way, respecting the principles of the circular economy – said the Mayor of Pirot, Vladan Vasic, adding that, not long ago, all investors in the city had been obliged to sign a contract for waste storage at the Regional Landfill and that illegal landfills were being cleaned up at several locations in the city.

– We have introduced certain regulations, that all investors must sign a contract on the storage of construction waste with our Regional Landfill and that in this way we treat construction waste in an environmentally acceptable and urban and communally responsible manner. Also, in accordance with the contract with the Ministry of Environmental Protection, illegal landfills are being removed in the city and its surroundings on a large scale, and I invite citizens to freely report to our urban inspection where these landfills are located, so that we can clean it all up and from now on treat municipal waste in a way that befits the city of Pirot in a European way – said Vasic.

Nebojsa Ivanov, Director of the Regional Landfill Pirot, pointed out that between 3,000 and 4,000 tons of construction waste was generated in Pirot annually. According to him, this means that construction is taking place in Pirot, but this waste has not been disposed of properly so far.

– All construction waste from the territory of the Pirot district will be transported to the regional landfill in the future, where it will be selected and recycled. As part of the project, we will build a field and provide the necessary (mobile) equipment. As the final product, we will receive aggregate that will primarily be used for the construction of local roads, which will directly benefit the city. The higher-quality recycled material, after appropriate testing, will be used in the concrete industry. We expect the field to be completed by the end of the year, and to actively start operating the plant next year. The plan is to reach full capacity in April or May and achieve concrete results – said Ivanov and announced the closure and cleaning of the landfill on the road to the village of Prisjan.

Plamena Nenkova, Deputy Executive Director of Strategies, Communications & International Affairs at GBS and coordinator of the MOBICCON-PRO project, shared her experiences with the mobile construction waste treatment plant in Sofia.

– The mobile installation is already operating in Sofia. The trial operation of the installation will last for two years, after which it will be transferred to Pirot. Our experiences from Sofia are excellent. About 55,000 tons of waste have now been treated, and the plan is to reach 174,000 tons in this trial phase. The result is obtaining high-quality secondary products that are used in the road industry and cement plants – said Nenkova.

Grad Pirot

JKP Regionalna deponija Pirot

Marija Đošić

Vladan Vasić

Nebojša Ivanov

Plamena Nenkova

Regional Landfill Pirot

MOBICCON PRO

construction of recycling depot and mobile construction waste treatment plant in Pirot