An Italian entrepreneur that won a tender contest held by the municipality of Chisinau will invest $2m in treating solid waste disposed of at the dump in Tantareni village, city officials informed on Monday. The money will be invested in installing equipment that will drill at 10 to 30 meter depths in the landfill to collect gas and produce electricity from it. The process will be supervised by the Moldovan company “Bio Gaz Inter”, which will operate under the auspices of the United Nations. The electricity will be purchased by Union Fenosa and later distributed within Anenii Noi town. If the project proves successful, power distribution will be extended across the entire district of Anenii Noi. Earlier this summer Tantareni villagers have complained they can't stand the vicinity of the bad-smelling and disease-spreading garbage dump. Their complaints were supported by an NGO which claimed that the numerous leaks at the foundation of the landfill polluted the underground waters, making it life-endangering to live in a village where the major source of water are wells. According to Chisinau's waste management agency, the amounts of household refuse in the city have more than doubled in recent years to 2 cub.m. a year per capita. Each day 3,700 cub.m. of household waste are being disposed of from Chisinau. The municipality has been administering the landfill in Tantareni village since 1987, when the Government granted concession for the land specifically for waste management purposes. The city administration should start looking for another solutions, as the concession for the Tantareni landfill is due to expire in 2010.