CHALLENGES OF WASTE MANAGEMENT IN CITY OF SKOPJE

Waste is one of the biggest environmental problems in the city of Skopje. In the same time it is а big future challenge, considering that waste problems could be transferred into benefits by using its potentials. Skopje is a capital and the largest city of Macedonia. Despites some improvement in waste management, particularly in a part of waste infrastructure, the situation is far from satisfactory. The level of primary municipal waste selection and collection is still very low and а big portion of waste is collected as а mix waste stream. The system of sustainable waste management is not established yet. This produces a slow growth of recycling and other forms of recovery. In the area of commercial waste, the conditions in terms of primary waste selection and collection are slightly better. However the most portion of waste ends to the landfills without a pretreatment. Additionally private and informal sectors are not included in the system. The determined objectives from the strategic and planning documents and regulations adopted by central and local government are not realized. In the future it should be undertaken a wide set of short term, midterm and long term measures and activities for establishing sustainable waste management. A main goal of this paper is to analyze and to research the various aspects of waste management in Skopje and to give some recommendations for its improvement.