Waste Incinerator for the City of East Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
PROJECT INFORMATION
Project implementer: Association of Holistic Solutions s.r.o., Damaris Solutions s.r.o., ENVIROS, s.r.o.
Donor: Ministry of Industry and Trade within the development cooperation of the Czech Republic with Bosnia and Herzegovina
Implementation period: 2023
BASELINE STATE
One of the country's current needs is to deal with the huge amount of solid waste, most of which is unsorted and ends up in open dumps. The amount of waste is also expected to increase, which is a trend in developing countries. The country currently lacks sufficient legislation for environmental protection purposes and still faces challenges in ensuring environmental sustainability. This results in a high environmental burden as well as a failure to exploit the potential of waste as a source of additional energy.
PROJECT AIM AND DEVELOPMENT ASPECTS
The aim of the project was to prepare a comprehensive feasibility study for the construction of a Waste to Energy (WtE) plant for the City of East Sarajevo, including an estimation and evaluation of the technical, financial and environmental aspects of the plant.
The development objective of the project was to transfer innovative know-how to introduce the use of waste as a new energy source and contribute to the overall economic growth of the country. According to its requirements, the project partner, the City of East Sarajevo, received a feasibility study for the construction of a WtE plant. By participating in the project and the feasibility study, the beneficiary partner gained Czech know-how on modern methods of waste management and waste-to-energy, and its professional capacity was increased. The partner is now able to transfer the acquired experience and know-how to potential other stakeholders and contribute to the development of the whole country from the position of an innovator.
The application of modern and environmentally friendly technology and the reduction of solid waste, or even entire landfills, will contribute to the improvement of the municipality's environment and the reduction of pollution. As a result, the inhabitants of the City of East Sarajevo will also benefit from better living conditions, where they will be able to use the energy generated from the efficient transformation of waste. It will also increase the municipality's energy self-sufficiency and reduce dependence on conventional fossil fuels.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
As an environmental indicator comparing the current landfilling option with the WtE incinerator construction option, the so-called carbon footprint was used - an indicator that expresses the impact on climate change in the form of greenhouse gas emissions. The carbon footprint of the municipal waste landfill option (in the amount of 23 725 t/year) comes out to 10 266 t CO2e per year. If all the incinerable components were sorted and recovered for energy use, their carbon footprint would be only 398 tCO2/year, which is only 4% of the original value. This would result in an annual saving of 9 868 t CO2e.
Further reductions in the carbon footprint would occur as a result of lower transport requirements. While waste is currently transported to a landfill approximately 30 km away, the incinerator site is planned to be located close to the municipality of East Sarajevo. As a result of the savings in mileage, a reduction in diesel consumption of about 40,000 litres per year can be expected, representing a reduction in the carbon footprint of about 105 t CO2e/year. The reduction of air pollutant emissions and economic savings are also not negligible in this respect.