Pollution threatens Albania – waste as a boomerang for tourism

A few days of heavy rainfall were enough for Albania’s Adriatic coast to become filled with municipal waste, and the alarm over pollution and problems with waste management has raised concern both among local authorities and in the tourism industry. Alongside the meteoric rise in the number of visitors, the situation is becoming serious, representatives of environmental organizations, politics, and the tourism sector warn for Kosovo Online.

By: Bledar Kuka

The government and tourism operators have long been rubbing their hands. Albania is indeed experiencing a strong increase in the number of visitors, and when the figures are totaled, it is assumed they will show that in 2025 the country welcomed 10 percent more tourists than in 2024.

Historical, cultural and religious tourism are experiencing their best days, and well-known cities such as Tirana, Shkodra, Gjirokastra, Berat and others are increasingly visited.

In addition to favorable airline ticket prices, improvements in road infrastructure, accommodation capacities and the beautification of city and village centers, there is a major problem that could turn into a “boomerang”.

We are talking about cleanliness, the threat of urban pollution and risks that increase in direct proportion to the growth in visitor numbers. Kosovo Online interviewed three figures connected to environmental protection and tourism: one from the field of ecology, a tourism operator and an opposition MP in the Albanian parliament, a candidate for mayor of Durres, who also had his own project to combat municipal waste.

Mihalac Cirjo is a well-known and experienced professor at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics and is also active in environmental protection associations. He says that waste management in Albania remains one of the main challenges.

“Waste management in Albania remains one of the main challenges for environmental protection. These problems became clearly visible recently, after heavy rainfall, when we had significant pollution along the Adriatic coast, which is the result of poor waste management inland. People in cities and villages throw waste into rivers, and rainfall carries municipal waste into the sea, from where it then returns to the shore. It is clear that waste management, whether plastic or other types, is not being implemented properly inland. Most of the pollution dumped into rivers is plastic, but it often happens that rivers are also polluted with municipal waste, mainly from sewage (wastewater). Many small residential centers do not have adequate infrastructure, which causes this pollution,” Professor Cirjo says.

Professor Cirjo cites worrying data on the level of waste processing in Albania and compares it with EU standards.

“In general, our municipalities only try to collect and transport waste to a few collection points (landfills), because in most cases we do not even have sanitary landfills that meet the required standards. That is where the responsibility of municipalities ends, due to a lack of financial resources or systems for separating waste at the source. If we were able to separate waste at the source, that is, where it is generated, in households or in urban and rural settlements, we could develop recycling processes, which are at a very low level in Albania. Less than 20 percent of waste is recycled, while European Union countries, such as Germany, recycle around 80 percent of waste, including glass, paper, textiles, metals and so on. In this way, the need to incinerate municipal waste or dispose of it in places where it must be treated is avoided. In Albania, we should begin establishing an integrated waste management system that would enable waste separation at the municipal level, where it originates. The waste would then be transported to collection points that could be landfills, or even a small portion to incinerators, if that is resolved by the courts. More than half of municipal waste in Albania is organic, which means it can be composted to produce organic fertilizer used in agriculture, green areas and so on,” he explains.

Democratic Party MP Igli Cara, a citizen of Durres and a candidate for mayor, accuses the government of squandering a previous investment of 500 million euros for waste recycling and creating an incinerator model. He says the government should use 600 million euros collected from environmental protection taxes to resolve precisely this problem.

“The Albanian government collects more than 600 million euros in environmental protection taxes, but does not spend even two percent of that amount on this sector. This is scandalous. What are taxes anyway? They are money taken from one area of the economy and normally should be returned for that purpose. When you receive 600 million euros, and people know how to calculate, you cannot spend that money in another sector, on administrative salaries or other investments. You must use it exactly for the purpose for which the taxes were collected. Every type of packaged product, such as plastic, glass or cardboard, pays a tax upon import. With this money, the state must ensure a clean environment. A clean environment is first and foremost a matter of human life and national security. The situation is alarming. Today we are one of the most polluted countries. Tirana is a ‘champion’ in this regard. Its pollution far exceeds permitted limits. We have turned into a country where waste is not processed, and we are becoming a concern for our neighbors as well. What happened in Dubrovnik clearly shows how our government functions. That amount of waste is not created in a single day, but accumulates over years. If we went to the mouth of the Ishëm River, the thickness of plastic waste in the water reaches 2–3 meters over a large area, residents say. The point is that from plastic and solid waste alone, 39,000 tons are generated annually,” he points out.

Igli Cara states that projects have been implemented in Albania for which large sums of money were spent, but without results, and no one has been held accountable.

“A few days ago, when I was a candidate for mayor of Durres, I made a calculation starting from a pilot project from 2012, in one part of the city, for separating municipal waste at the source. Although the funding was completed and Mr. Dako was mayor, nothing was done, even though the money was spent. Here in Albania, no one is responsible for money allocated for a specific purpose. There is no verification of whether a project was implemented or not, nor who is responsible for the spent funds. This way of spending public money must finally end. Every public fund must be audited to see whether it reached its intended destination. How did I come up with a solution to the problem? I knew that Durres produces a large amount of waste and that large funds are not needed to manage it. Let me cite the example of the city of Berat, where waste is recycled, as we were informed by the Ministry of Environmental Protection. Imagine how important this is for Durres, especially in the summer, when we have high levels of pollution from plastic, glass, metals and cardboard. Imagine separating waste at the source and generating revenue from it. First of all, there would be no pollution, which is the most important thing, but we would also have economic benefits,” he told Kosovo Online.

Aneo Hila is the owner and general director of the travel agency “Albanian Eagle Tours”. He claims that pollution on beaches is a chronic problem with several causes.

“Waste in Albania, especially in areas with high tourism capacity, is a chronic problem that has been noticeable for years and becomes visible during the summer season in areas such as Golem or Durres, where trash bins are full all day. In addition to this phenomenon, which is not aesthetically pleasing and brings bad smells and possible diseases, we also have a problem with beach management, because people throw garbage on the sand and sunbed owners do not keep the sand clean. This applies to both private and public beaches, with more waste being thrown on public beaches because management there is weaker. Besides beaches, which are the biggest problem during the summer, we also have problems in cities, and experts do not need to establish that, because we see garbage on the streets every day. The main streets in Tirana may be cleaner, but in residential areas dirt is everywhere,” Hila warns.

The general director of this company cannot precisely determine the percentage of the negative impact of pollution on tourism business, but emphasizes that it undoubtedly causes problems, especially for the country’s image.

“It is not easy for me to determine an exact percentage of negative impact, but the fact is that waste is not only a hygienic issue, but also an aesthetic one. Tourists do not know the general state of hygiene in the country, because you have to live here to understand the situation, but aesthetically it is visible and has a negative impact. We compare ourselves with other countries. If you go to Milan or Rome, you will see cleanliness everywhere. You can even walk barefoot. But Naples is probably worse than many parts of Albania. This also serves as a reference point for comparison. Albania is at the beginning of tourism development, and it would be a major problem if an impression were created that the country is dirty, because such an impression is very easy to create and very hard to change,” he assesses.

However, Hila also includes neighboring countries as responsible for the alarming environmental situation.

“When it comes to waste treatment, this is not only an Albanian problem, but a regional one. Order is maintained by institutions, but if people are accustomed to rules not existing, they behave at the most basic level, and public awareness drops to zero. Legal oversight is needed. I do not see municipal or state police going out to beaches and streets and issuing fines for pollution, the way traffic fines are issued. This is not the only way to solve the problem. Public awareness must be raised about disposing of waste in designated places, and infrastructure capacity must be increased, more bins, more signage. There are many elements needed for the system to function. In a regional context, Albania is a country through which many rivers flow that originate in three countries: Kosovo, North Macedonia and Greece. Therefore, regional cooperation is needed for waste management. If Albania has to manage all the waste, other countries can say: ‘It is not our problem that the river carries waste,’” our interlocutor concludes.

The Albanian government has approved a new environmental protection law, while the scandal involving incinerators, for which trials are ongoing and in which former high-ranking officials, including ministers, have been convicted, shows how serious the situation with pollution and municipal waste in the country really is.