Albania to centralize waste management under a national operator from 2026

The Albanian Government will send to Parliament for approval in the first week of September a draft law that transforms the current waste management agency into a state-owned joint-stock company charged with running waste collection and treatment nationwide beginning from 2026. A companion bill introduces extended producer responsibility (EPR). The Prime Minister and Environment Minister Mirela Kumbaro presented the package as part of a deeper reform tied to EU accession.

Why is this important: The overhaul aims to end fragmented practices, close illegal dumps, standardize service quality across the country’s 10 waste-management zones, and align Albania with EU environmental rules. Speaking about the scale of the challenge the Prime Minister said: “There must be great awareness first and foremost at the level of all those who are directly connected, by virtue of their duty, with waste. There must be great dedication and there must be an extraordinarily complex organization to involve everyone in this process, but without these this process cannot get across and Albania cannot manage to fulfill its obligation to itself in the first place.”

Context: Under the plan, municipalities will no longer administer services directly. As the Prime Minister put it, “It will no longer be a process administered by the municipalities, but it will be a process administered by this national operator, in cooperation of course with all the other levels of governance. The municipalities will be clients just as they are clients of other operators for other services.” The reform foresees new compliant landfills, the closure of unauthorized disposal sites, unified collection and treatment standards in each zone, and tougher penalties for violations.

The Government also acknowledged Albania’s very low level of waste separation and flagged a nationwide cleanup of end-of-life vehicle lots and other illegal sites. In the Prime Minister’s words: “We are, I believe, the only country in Europe where car graveyards are legalized without a law but presented as fait acompli throughout the territory. The operation that has just begun will uproot all the graveyards.

What’s next: If approved by the Council of Ministers in early September, both bills go to Parliament. The Government says the legal changes will underpin the operational switch in 2026.