In 2020, North Macedonia experienced no substantial advancement in the field of protection of the waters from the sewage. Two-thirds of the human excrement from the populated areas are still dumped in rivers and underground waters without undergoing any treatment. No major wastewater treatment plants were put into use in the cities throughout the country last year, so the data provided by the State Statistical Office doesn’t show any significant changes in comparison with the situation in 2019.
Last year we created 105,991,000 cubic meters of sewage i.e. 0.8% less compared to 2019. The statistical data shows that households are the main producers of sewage and are followed by the firms and other users. At the same time, in 2020, 66.6% of the created wastewater have ended in the rivers, streams and underground waters as unfiltered, while 33.4% were treated by wastewater treatment plants before discharging them into the rivers and underground waters.
During the 12 months of last year, the country’s water potential was polluted with 68, 325,000 cubic meters of untreated sewage. This represents a minimal decrease in dumped quantities of this pollutant compared to 2019. The trend in the last few years shows that this country is decreasing the percentage of sewage that is dumped into the rivers and underground waters, while last year we have completely stopped the dumping of urban sewage into the lakes and reservoirs.
Still, Macedonian municipalities and the central government have to build wastewater treatment plants for all populated areas, which will, as major infrastructure, capture the urban wastewater before disposing them into the nature. The data provided by the Energy and Water Services Regulatory Commission says that in 80 Macedonian municipalities exist 55 public communal enterprises that are collecting and dumping sewage, but only 17 of these take the sewage to wastewater treatment plants.
What is necessary to raise the percentage of the treated wastewater before the discharge is the state raise the number of wastewater treatment plants in the capital Skopje and in Tetovo and Bitola, which are the biggest settlements. If those are built, over 50% of the created sewage in the country will be treated before dischargint into the rivers and the underground waters.
The central government has already promised that by the end of this year, the agreements will be signed and the building of the wastewater treatment plants in Tetovo and Bitola will start. Their construction will cost almost €58 million. The tender for the wastewater treatment plant in Skopje is also underway, and the project worth €136 million should start no sooner than the first half of 2022.
