The municipality of Plovdiv has agreed to take a further 100 000 tons of baled refuse from Sofia, Plovdiv mayor Slavcho Atanassov said on August 24 2009.

The Tsalapitsa landfill near Plovdiv has so far opened to 200 000 tons of packaged refuse. Up till now, its doors were closed to more refuse on the grounds that piling up more rubbish would take up a large portion of the facility’s capacity.

The U-turn came after local authorities met Deputy Environment Minister Evdokia Maneva, who pledged to provide more than 28 million leva from the state budget including 14.5 million leva for the construction of the Modar-Tsarevets transportation project, 4.3 million leva to clean up the banks of the Maritsa river and about 10 million leva to revamp the Tsalapitsa landfill.

Atanassov said that this was a key agreement for the municipality, which pocketed 47.7 million leva in government compensation when it accepted the first batch of bales.

Transfer costs have not been sorted out year but it will exceed what is paid by municipalities closer to Plovdiv. Transportation costs were predicted to be about two million leva.

The bales should be collected from the temporary sites near Sofia by the end of 2009 or else Bulgaria could face fines from the European Commission.

At the moment, Sofia carries bales to the northern town of Silistra. A further 50 000 tons was supposed to head off to the nearby town of Lovetch but local councillors recently backtracked from the decision.

The August 24 decision by Plovdiv leaves Sofia wondering what to do with a portion of about 170 000 tons. The capital city gave out 57 million leva to private companies to package 500 000 tons of waste, having earmarked 50 million leva for storage and transfer this year.

Source: Dnevnik.bg