Composting station

Our long-term effort in Old Markethall is to minimize the amount of waste that we create together. In addition to banning the use of plastic straws in establishments and introducing backup cups for all hot and cold drinks, we regularly sort all waste. Compostable waste makes up the largest part of our waste - vegetable and flower clippings from farmers from Saturday markets, food scraps, used crockery and packaging from Street Food Parks, waste from brewing beer in the basement of the market, and a lot of other "invisible" waste from operations and events in the market.

We felt the need to find a way to process it more efficiently on our own. That's how the idea of building our own operation of a composting facility was born.

However, we were unable to process this waste ourselves, so we exported it. "We felt the need to find a way to process it more efficiently on our own. That's how the idea of building our own operation of a composting facility was born, which would reduce not only the amount of municipal waste, but also the impact of its removal on the surrounding environment and our neighbors," says Jana Vašáková from the Alliance of Old Markethall, which coordinates this pilot project.

Thanks to Slovenská sporiteľna, we succeeded at the beginning of 2021 and invested in an industrial electric composter. It is a closed system with filtration, which breaks down the waste thanks to the increased temperature. A temperature above 70°C will destroy all germs. The resulting mass is constantly heated and mixed, thereby speeding up the process of creating valuable and reusable compost. We will thus be able to transform up to 50 tons of waste annually.

We are glad that as part of the partnership of the Slovenská sporiteľna with Stará tržnica we were able to support the purchase of a composter, which will help turn tens of tons of waste into compost every year and thus contribute to a greener and more modern Bratislava. We are dedicated to green issues for a long time, we save paper and energy, we don't use billboards, we keep and support bees, we recently introduced ecological payment cards as the first bank on the market," explains Dáša Juríková, director of strategy and brand development.

Currently, the composter has already passed from the zero test phase to regular operation, and the compost produced by us has received certification from the Regional Food and Veterinary Administration. Thanks to this, we can offer the produced compost to farmers selling vegetables on Saturday markets. There is quite a lot of interest in this compost. In 2021, we processed 3.4 tons of waste, which resulted in 495 kg of compost, in 2022 it was already 4.3 tons of waste and we produced up to 1100 kg of high-quality compost.

For the Old Markethall, own composter means a reduction in the volume of municipal waste by up to 80%, for our neighbors it means less territory burdened by garbage trucks, less noise when weighing waste and less smell from municipal waste. We are happy that we are once again one step closer to zero waste and can thus contribute to a greener Bratislava.