Loving Albania also means Taking Responsibility for Protecting its Environment
For Lulzim Baumann, Founder of RecycAl, protecting nature is not simply a profession. It is a promise to the country he loves, to his children, and to the generations that will inherit what we leave behind.
“I can’t wait to wake up in the morning because I know it’s going to be a beautiful day. I know there will be new partners, new ideas.” For many people, that might sound like unusual enthusiasm for the start of a working day. For Lulzim Baumann, it comes naturally.
For him, no two days are the same. One moment he is in front of his laptop speaking with partners, the next he is in the factory working alongside his team, checking equipment or helping move materials. Whenever possible, he arrives by bicycle.
“There is no monotony in this job,” says Lulzim. But behind the energy of his daily routine is something much deeper: a decision he made years ago to come back to Albania and try to change something that had troubled him since childhood. Lulzim is Albanian-German. He spent important years of his life in Germany, studied there and built professional experience there. But Albania remained home.
A river that “stayed” with him
Lulzim grew up near the place where the beauty of the landscape existed alongside severe pollution. “I was born and raised near the Ishëm River, which is the most polluted river in Europe,” he says. “Pollution has affected me deeply because it is something that directly affects our health.” The memory on river stayed with him long after he left Albania.
For more than a decade, he searched for ways to contribute to a cleaner environment. His years in Germany gave him a different perspective. He saw that environmental problems that may appear permanent do not have to remain that way. He learned that Germany itself had faced serious pollution decades earlier. That gave him hope:
“If Germany could change, I believed Albania could change too.” Instead of seeing the difference between the two countries as a reason to stay abroad, Lulzim saw it as a reason to return.
“Someone has to do this work,” he said and added: “Rather than wait for someone else to take the initiative, I decided to build the recycling infrastructure myself.”
Coming home to build something
Before taking that step, Lulzim had already spent years working with NGOs, universities and institutions. He taught, developed projects and contributed his expertise in circular economy and environmental protection. Many of those initiatives were valuable. But he increasingly felt that something was missing.
Infrastructure
“We worked with NGOs, taught at universities, wrote and implemented projects,” he recalls. “But all of this was a contribution that could not really be measured because the infrastructure was still missing.” So, four years ago, he made a bigger decision. He founded Recycling Albania – RecycAl and began building theCircular Economy Park, the first facility of its kind in the Western Balkans.
It was an ambitious undertaking in a market where recycling was still developing and where the financial return was anything but certain. For Lulzim, however, the calculation was never purely financial. He wanted to put everything he had learned abroad into something tangible at home.
The park today brings several elements of the circular economy together in one place: environmental education, a second-hand materials shop, glass and plastic recycling, and organic waste management. It is a place where waste is not seen simply as something to throw away, but as something that can be transformed and used again. Glass waste from companies producing doors and windows, for example, is mechanically processed and sieved until it becomes granules that can be used for swimming-pool water filtration. It is a practical example of the philosophy that has shaped Lulzim’s work: protecting nature requires ideas, but also systems that make those ideas possible.
Partners who believed in the idea
Building such a facility required more than determination. Over four years, Lulzim estimates that at least €500,000 has been invested in developing the park, with much of the support coming through international partners and European donors. The European Union was among the partners that helped turn parts of his vision into reality.
“Thanks to the European union and German donors, we were given the opportunity and the initial support to build this park,” Lulzim explains. EU support also helped make possible one of RecycAl’s most important initiatives: its glass-recycling project. For him, cooperation has never been an abstract concept. He has worked through projects, partnerships and programmes that brought expertise, financing and people together around practical environmental solutions.
These partnerships helped establish recycling lines, develop new activities and give greater visibility to ideas that were still relatively new in Albania.
Betting on Albania
Starting the company was anything but easy. Lulzim knew that recycling was not a safe investment. There was no guarantee that the business model would work, and there were few examples to follow. “I knew the plan for this business was very high-risk,” he says. “It did not look like a profitable business. But I believed that this was the future and that Albania needed it.” That belief became stronger than the uncertainty. He invested money, professional experience and years of his life into creating something he believed his country needed.
Part of his motivation was also connected to Albania’s European future. The belief that Albania could continue changing, developing and eventually become an EU Member State gave him another reason to continue.
“When I started, I was very much alone,” he says. “But along the way, when you set out to do something good, you never remain alone.” Partners came. Projects followed. A team grew around the idea. And the work continued.
Pollution and environmental damage cannot be part of Albania’s future
Lulzim could have stayed abroad. Instead, he chose Albania. Not because it was easier. In many ways, it was exactly the opposite. He returned because he believed that loving a country also means taking responsibility for the things that need to change.
For him, preservation of Albania’s rivers, landscapes and natural resources are not problems for somebody else to solve. They are something worth protecting, investing in and fighting for. That belief is visible in the way he works: cycling to the park, meeting partners, handling materials alongside his employees, developing new recycling solutions and continuing to search for the next idea.
He still talks about the future with the enthusiasm of someone who believes change is possible. And perhaps that is the strongest thread running through his story: he refuses to accept that pollution, waste and environmental damage simply have to be part of Albania’s future. “What I would say is that a person should have a vision to do something good in life,” Lulzim says. “I strongly believe that we have come into this life to leave the planet better than we found it.” His own ambition is even more personal. “When I come to the end of my life, I want to make sure that I have given my maximum and that I have left this country better than I found it.” It is what gets him out of bed every morning.
