Waste Incinerators as the Wrong Response to the Waste and Energy Crisis in the Western Balkans

While the Western Balkan countries have yet to establish even basic systems for separate waste collection, we are increasingly hearing governments and investors promote waste incinerators as a modern solution, a source of green energy, or even part of the circular economy. In Podgorica, Montenegro, a 50 MW waste-to-energy plant has been announced; in Bosnia and Herzegovina, plans are being developed for waste co-incineration in thermal power plants, as well as for new incinerators in Zenica, Bosanski Petrovac, Sarajevo, and Mostar; while similar projects have in recent years been problematically implemented in Albania and Serbia.

The justifications are always the same: the region has a waste problem, an energy problem, and incineration will supposedly solve both at once. However, the opposite is true: waste incineration threatens to deepen both the waste management crisis and the region’s energy dependence.

The study by the CEE Bankwatch Network, “Waste Incineration Trends in the Western Balkans for the Purposes of Electricity and Heat Generation”, shows that this is a technically, financially, and environmentally risky model, one that is increasingly misaligned with the requirements of the European Union, which we all aspire to join.

Waste Incineration Means Burning Resources and Does Not Represent a Circular Economy

One of the greatest misconceptions and dangerous narratives promoted by advocates of waste incineration is that incinerators supposedly contribute to the circular economy. This claim is not only incorrect but contrary to the basic principles of circularity.

A circular economy means keeping the value of materials within the system for as long as possible, through waste prevention, reuse, repair, and recycling. Incinerators do exactly the opposite: they destroy materials that could be reused. When paper, plastic, textiles, or organic waste are burned, they disappear from the economic cycle. Instead of becoming raw materials for new production, they become ash, CO₂ emissions, and toxic pollutants. A true circular economy encourages treatments such as anaerobic digestion, which produces biogas and digestate from bio-waste, with the digestate used as fertilizer, or mechanical recycling, which turns plastic into new plastic products, while incineration represents the ultimate form of a linear process.

It is paradoxical that the narrative of circular incinerators is being pushed precisely in a region with almost non-existent waste separation systems. In most Western Balkan countries, waste is still predominantly disposed of in landfills, while separate collection of recyclable materials is minimal or merely symbolic. According to the study, the municipal waste recycling rate in Montenegro is only around 3.7 percent, in Bosnia and Herzegovina around 1 percent, and in North Macedonia just 0.3 percent. Under such conditions, an incinerator does not receive residual waste that cannot be recycled, as required by the EU waste hierarchy, but instead burns mixed municipal waste containing huge quantities of materials that could have been recycled, composted, or reused.

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The climate picture is no brighter. Municipal waste incineration emits approximately 1,700 grams of CO₂ equivalent per kilowatt-hour, which is more than coal-fired thermal power plants, at around 1,000 g CO₂e/kWh. Oil-based plastic, which accounts for the highest-calorific component of waste, further worsens the climate footprint. When cities such as Belgrade sign contracts obliging them to deliver 510,000 tonnes of waste per year to the Vinča incinerator, even though the incinerator’s capacity is only 340,000 tonnes, they structurally move away from recycling and the circular economy.

An Incinerator Must “Feed” for Decades

Once a waste incinerator is built, it becomes an infrastructural anchor that ties a municipality or state to it for several decades. These facilities require enormous initial investments, often between EUR 100 and 150 million, as in the case of the planned incinerator in Podgorica, and their financial sustainability depends directly on a constant, guaranteed supply of large quantities of waste.

This creates a bizarre incentive whereby, instead of reducing waste and encouraging recycling, operators and local authorities are forced to secure ever-larger quantities of mixed or pre-treated waste so that the incinerator can operate at full capacity and repay the investment. This “lock-in” phenomenon means that cities sign long-term delivery contracts, often for 20, 25, or even 30 years, obliging them to provide guaranteed quantities, even if more efficient recycling systems are developed in the meantime or waste volumes are reduced through effective measures.

The consequences of such an approach can be seen even in countries with high environmental and social standards, such as Austria, Sweden, and Switzerland, which invested heavily in incinerators and large incineration capacities several decades ago. In Austria, for example, between 2015 and 2021, the recycling rate increased by only 2–3 percent, from around 58 percent to 60.4 percent. In Sweden, which incinerates an enormous 1.3 to 1.5 million tons of waste imported from abroad in order to fill its incineration capacity, the recycling rate has for years stood at only around 27–35 percent, far from EU targets. A similar situation can be seen in Switzerland, one of the countries that generates the highest amount of municipal waste per capita and is among the leaders in the share of waste incinerated annually; after an initial increase in the recycling rate up to 2010, it has practically stagnated over the past 10–15 years.

These examples clearly show that once an incinerator is built, it is difficult for any government to later decide to shut it down before the debt repayment period expires, even if this means postponing circular economy goals and undermining its own legal obligations towards the EU.

If countries with strong institutions and developed waste separation systems have failed to significantly increase recycling after building large incineration capacities, the logical question arises: how will Western Balkan countries succeed in doing so when they have yet to introduce even basic waste separation?

Nataša Kovačević

The story was published in Energy portal Magazine CLEAN ENERGY