Taraba: Another Incinerator in Bratislava Might Spoil Local Environment

Bratislava, April 17 (TASR) - Building another large incinerator in Bratislava, just a few kilometres from the existing one, could put an enormous burden on the environment in the Slovak capital, Environment Minister Tomas Taraba (Slovak National Party/SNS) has posted on a social network. "Bratislava has no problem with waste incineration capacities and needs to modernise the existing ones instead," said Taraba. He assured Bratislava residents that, as was the case with the construction of an incinerator in Dudince (Banska Bystrica region), this and all similar projects in Slovakia will always be evaluated in great detail. "Under my leadership, Slovakia will certainly not go down the path Sweden took in the past, building extreme incineration capacities just to import waste from abroad. We definitely won't allow Slovakia to become the rubbish bin of Europe," declared the minister. According to Taraba, Slovakia needs facilities that will convert waste - which ends up in landfills and threatens groundwater - into heat or electricity. However, such facilities must primarily be built where they are needed, he added. A centre for producing energy from waste should be built within the existing Slovnaft refinery complex in Bratislava. The centre will consist of a facility for further sorting separated waste components and equipment for producing energy from waste. The projected capacity of the facility is 316,000 tonnes annually. The construction work should be launched this year, completed in 2029, and the facility put in operation in 2030. More than two thirds of the waste to be processed will consist of standard mixed municipal waste and less than a third difficult-to-process industrial waste, including waste from Slovnaft. ko/df