Environmentalists proposed to Sofia municipality to increase the volume of recycled and composted refuse to achieve better waste management. Should half of Sofia’s annual household refuse be recycled or composted, the city would earn 17 to 20 million euro, Ivailo Hlebarov from association Za Zemiata (For the Earth) told The Sofia Echo on May 20. Hlebarov estimated the annual amount of refuse in the city at about 250 000 tons.

The number of new jobs, according to estimations made by Neil Seldman from the Washington, DC, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, would be between 500 and 750.

The non-governmental environmental organizations Green Policy Institute, Balkani Wildlife Society, Centre for Environmental Information and Education and association Za Zemiata officially submitted the proposal to the city hall on May 19. Asked by The Sofia Echo whether there was already any reaction by the city administration to the proposal, municipality spokesperson Tsvetanka Krusteva said on May 20 that it was too early to announce a decision.

The proposal was also sent to the European Commission (EC) “as part of the documentation on the already started procedure on environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the project Household refuse management of Sofia municipality", the environmentalists said in their media statement.

“Preliminary research indicates that Sofia can increase recycling and composting rapidly within the next few years,” the environmentalists said. “It is possible to reach 50 per cent recycling of municipal solid waste in three years and 75 per cent recycling in five years. A 50 per cent recycling rate could be achieved by collecting and processing 50 per cent of compostable materials (kitchen and garden waste) and 75 per cent of recyclable materials (including plastic, paper, metal, glass and rubber). A 75 per cent recycling rate could be achieved by collecting and processing 75 per cent of compostable materials and 90 per cent of recyclable materials. Such rates should be binding, politically and legally supported,” the media statement said.

The environmentalists said that the statements of Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov that the law should be changed in order the EIA to be prepared after the household refuse factory planned by the city is already constructed, are “exceptionally dangerous, as his proposal directly contradicts the European legislation and in essence returns us to the acts of the Bulgarian Socialist Party government from 1995”.

"Ten days ago EC opened an infringement procedure against Bulgaria concerning the EIA legislation, and Borissov is going to bring us one more infringement procedure like this. Similar statements show the mayor’s overt neglect towards the environmental legislation,” the media statement said.

According to the environmentalists, Borissov is “disseminating the eyewash that EC gave 131 million euro for the ‘factory’. This amount was mentioned in the list of big projects in Environment Operational Programme, but this list is indicative, not to mention that the project was not voted by the Working group (on the Environment Operational Programme within Ministry of Environment and Waters) but added subsequently behind the backs of the participants in the working group,” the environmentalists stated. According to them, Sofia municipality has to work a lot to receive money from the European funds.