It is interesting how the whole story started. AKRON started in 2001 as a furniture company. We were located in Glassware where there was large amounts of glass waste which was increasing day by day. We thought why the state did not do something with this, and then we said to ourselves why we should not do that.

- Initially we did not have any information about how this work is going, and when we asked they told us that it is unprofitable and economically unjustified, but we were persistent in our intention. "We talked to eminent experts from England who helped us find some way to be profitable in the process," Penev said.

- Glass waste generated in Macedonia is from two sources - packaging and industrial glass, and the amount is about 50 thousand tons. Waste glass treatment centers in the area are covered by glassmakers and generally cover their costs. "There is no math and money to cover the costs, so we found other industries for engineering stone, a product made from recycled materials, which is then used to make a kind of marble replica," Penev said.

-Our glass granules are currently exported to America. This project received initial assistance from the Innovation Fund in 2016. "Even then we saw the obligations that Macedonia has undertaken from the EU in its pre-accession negotiations and even then it is said that Macedonia in the coming years will take 60 percent of glass waste for recycling, but unfortunately to date we can barely reach 15," he told Morning briefing, engineer Aleksandar Penev from the company AKRON.

Follow the whole conversation in the video