This news piece was first published on policypress.cy
Cyprus generates 653 kilograms of municipal waste per person each year, well above the EU average of 511 kilograms, and landfills 76% of its mixed municipal solid waste, against an EU average of 23%. It was also supposed to have mandatory waste sorting in place at municipal level by June 2024. According to panellists at Cyprus Forum Cities 2026, it has not been implemented. Two panels at the forum, held on 24 April in Limassol, examined both sides of that failure: why biogas, the technology that could turn Cyprus’ organic waste into local energy, remains commercially unviable after years of discussion, and why Pay-As-You-Throw, the EU-backed scheme that would make households financially responsible for the waste they produce, has stalled before it has started.
The diagnosis across both panels was consistent. Cyprus has the obligations, the framework, and in some cases the pilots. What it lacks is the regulatory clarity, the funding architecture, and the central government coordination to turn any of them into a functioning system.
Biogas on paper, gridlock in practice
The biogas panel was introduced by moderator Andreas Kazamias, Board Advisor at Morphosis Group, with a set of figures that framed the discussion as an indictment as much as an opportunity. Cyprus continues to landfill the vast majority of its mixed municipal solid waste while remaining heavily dependent on imported energy. Biogas, he argued, is technically feasible and could turn that waste into local, reliable power. The reason it has not is not technical. It is organisational.
Dr Ioannis Vyrides, Associate Professor in Chemical Engineering at the Cyprus University of Technology, outlined what a workable model would look like: farm-scale anaerobic digesters combined with municipal-scale infrastructure, with feedstock quality and source separation treated as prerequisites rather than afterthoughts. The technology exists. The missing ingredient, he said, is a clear national vision that commits to implementing it.
Dr Tedd Moya Mose, Senior Executive Consultant at Morphosis Group, examined why projects that look viable on paper have repeatedly failed to attract investment. Feedstock security is the first problem: consistent, high-quality organic waste must be available at predictable cost across the full value chain, from collection through digestion to electricity generation. Without that guarantee, investors will not commit. He pointed to Germany, Denmark, and Italy as countries that have solved this problem through different means: Germany through long-term feed-in tariffs that guarantee revenue for biogas producers, Denmark by fully integrating biogas into national waste and energy systems, and Italy through auction mechanisms that de-risk investment by providing multiple revenue streams. Portugal, he noted, undertook regulatory reform but struggled with implementation, a cautionary parallel for Cyprus.
For Cyprus to attract viable biogas investment, Moya Mose said, it needs to send clear market signals: guaranteed feedstock, blended finance mechanisms that bring in private capital alongside public support, and contracts for difference that protect investors when energy prices fall below viable levels and recoup excess returns when prices rise above agreed levels. None of those mechanisms currently exist in any coherent form.
Charalampos Theopemptou, Member of Parliament and Chair of the Environment Committee, explained why the regulatory landscape makes things worse. A biogas project in Cyprus currently requires four separate permits: a town planning permit, an environmental permit from the Department of Environment, a veterinary services permit if animal waste is involved, and an authorisation from the Energy Regulatory Authority to generate and sell electricity. The approvals process is slow, sequential, and lacks coordination between agencies. Theopemptou pointed to a recent law defining compost as a legally saleable product for agricultural use as a step in the right direction, and called for fuller use of the Green Procurement Directive, which already allows local authorities to purchase locally produced compost, to build a functioning market. The absence of source-separation policy, he said, remains the most critical gap: without it, the feedstock on which any biogas system depends cannot be consistently secured.
A deadline missed, a system unprepared
The Pay-As-You-Throw panel arrived at the same destination from a different direction. Where the biogas discussion asked why a viable solution has not been built, the PAYT panel asked why a legal obligation has not been met.
Joanna Constantinidou, Senior Environment Officer at the Department of Environment within the Ministry of Agriculture, set out the framework. The EU Waste Framework Directive of 2018 embeds the polluter-pays principle, requiring citizens to bear the costs of the waste they generate as an incentive for reduction and separation. Cyprus was obligated to implement waste sorting at municipal level by June 2024, with organic waste the priority material. The Thalia programme, running from 2021 to 2027, exists specifically to help municipalities build the capacity to meet that obligation, providing financial support to reach EU recycling targets.
Constantinidou pointed to Aglandjia Municipality, which ran a pilot programme from 2019 and introduced prepaid bags in 2021, as a working local model of what source separation and cost-linked fees can look like in a Cypriot context.
The mayors on the panel were less reassured. Kyriacos Xydias, Mayor of Amathounta, said municipalities are still waiting for coherent directives from central government on how to implement waste sorting systems. Without clear guidance, consistent funding, and adequate infrastructure, he said, municipalities cannot be expected to design and operate schemes that meet EU standards on their own. The current waste management infrastructure across the island, he argued, is simply not adequate for the task.
Stavros Hadjiyiannis, Mayor of South Nicosia-Idalio, was direct about where responsibility for the delay lies. Municipalities, he said, should not be blamed for failures caused by government inaction on infrastructure investment and operational guidance. The cost of waste management must not be passed on to citizens through higher fees unless a proper system is already in place to justify them. He called for more realistic national targets calibrated to current capacity, and for flexibility that accounts for the different needs of different municipal areas.
Pantelis Georgiou, Mayor of Kourion, raised a concern that cuts to the heart of the PAYT concept. Without a functioning system underpinning it, Pay-As-You-Throw risks becoming a mechanism for shifting financial burdens rather than changing behaviour. His prescription: prioritise reducing consumption and improving household waste practices first. Move toward cost-linked fees only once the infrastructure to support them fairly and consistently is in place. Otherwise, he argued, the result is public resistance to a scheme that has not yet earned public confidence.
The same failure, two faces
What connected the two panels was not just the subject matter but the structure of the problem. Cyprus has EU obligations it has not met, technologies and schemes it has not implemented, and a central government that has not provided the regulatory frameworks, financial mechanisms, or clear guidance that would allow local authorities to act. In both cases, the gap between policy and practice is not primarily technical. It is a question of institutional coordination, political will, and the willingness to design systems that actually work at the scale Cyprus operates.
The Aglandjia pilot shows that PAYT can function in a Cypriot municipality. The biogas discussion shows that the technical knowledge exists to make anaerobic digestion work at local scale. What neither panel could identify is the national-level commitment that would turn isolated examples into a functioning system. Until that changes, Cyprus will continue to bury most of what it produces and import most of what it needs.
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