Nearly 1400 cu m of radioactive waste is was processed in Bulgaria annually, Boris Pekov, executive director of the state enterprise Radioactive Waste said.

Nuclear Regulatory Agency data showed that in 2006, 2849 sites were sources of ionising radiation, Petkov said as quoted by Bulgarian news agency BTA.

Transportation to, and processing and storage of radioactive waste at the waste sites of Bulgaria's Novi Han and Kozloduy cost nine million leva per year.

According to Pekov, prices charged to a company owner for transportation and processing of radioactive waste were lower than real expenses.

Bulgaria won three projects under the PHARE programme for modernisation of the Novi Han waste site, Pekov said. The projects were worth eight million leva.

The money would be granted only after the second public debate on the environmental impact report, to be held on November 15 2007.

Nikolai Lambev, expert at Radioactive Waste, said that a national depositary for low and medium radioactive waste should be built in Bulgaria by 2015. Currently, four locations were under discussion for the construction of the depositary, he said.