Sofia municipality and the Ministry of Environment and Water Affairs do not yet have an official position on the penalty procedure that the European Commission had started against Bulgaria because of the prolonged problems with Sofia’s rubbish.

Two solutions to resolve the refuse situation have been discussed at city hall: a long term and a short term plan. The long term plan includes the construction of a rubbish reprocessing factory, which could be started in September 2008. Sofia municipality public relations officer Tsvetanka Krusteva told The Sofia Echo that before then, the city is looking for short term solutions because the quota for filling up the temporary landfill sites in Karlovo and Tsalapitsa (Plovdiv municipality) will certainly be used up by the end of November, if not sooner.

Several options for other landfill sites are being considered by the city councillors but there has been no decision yet. Krusteva said the old refuse area in Suhodol near Sofia was also discussed but “the ecologists have to give their final word”.

“We all hope the municipality, together with the state, will, this time, find a solution to this problem,” she said.

Commenting on speculation in the Bulgarian media that Gorni and Dolni Bogrov sites near Sofia are also being considered as new refuse storage facilities by the city, Krusteva said that she could not confirm this. The city had not yet found a solution to the impending problem and it would not comment in advance.

The company that is conducting the pre-project surveys for the new refuse reprocessing factory is expected to complete them by September 2008. Krusteva said the same company has to determine the future factory’s technology, as well as the options for places where it could be built within the area of Sofia municipality. After that the city will hold a tender process for companies that express interests in building the new refuse plant.

On November 13 Bulgarian language daily Dnevnik reported that a new refuse crisis seems quite a real possibility for people living in Sofia. According to Dnevnik, the site in Gorni Bogrov is the most likely place for storing the bales of rubbish because it is the only one that corresponds to the legal requirements. Or at least, this was the conclusion drawn from the unclear statements by the city deputy mayor in charge of green systems, ecology and land usage Maria Boyadjiiska and Deputy Environment Minister Chavdar Georgiev, who met on November 12 to discuss possible solutions to the issue.

Boyadjiiska said that now it was not possible to negotiate extending the agreement with Plovdiv and Karlovo landfill sites because the new municipal council will sit for the first time on November 19, by which time the refuse quotas are likely to be filled already.

After “the 80 000 tons of refuse are stored, not one further gram will enter the Karlovo landfill,” said new Karlovo mayor Nayden Naydenov, as quoted by Bulgarian-language website Bgpost.bg.

In addition, Plovdiv mayor Slavcho Atanasov said that he would first wait for the results of the investigation he ordered and then make the necessary judgment. He said that the contract for storing Sofia’s rubbish at Tsalapitsa would be renewed only for huge financial compensation and only if it was still possible at the site.

“My initial opinion is that from now on Sofia refuse has to look for another site,” Atanasov said, immediately after he was elected at the municipal elections on October 28. He warned that the situation in Plovdiv could even become worse than that in Sofia because the Tsalapitsa depot has a definite capacity and the rubbish of five other municipalities besides Plovdiv and Sofia is stored there. However, Plovdiv and Karlovo municipalities have agreed to accept a final load of 200 000 tons and 80 000 tons of rubbish, respectively. Plovdiv requested 48 million leva, and Karlovo 17 million leva for this service, Bgpost.bg said.

According to Georgiev, the other option is to re-open the former Suhodol landfill site. However, this is unlikely because the procedure for restoring its facilities would take too long.

Another option to store Sofia’s rubbish is for it to be transported to a regional depot near Sofia, possibly in Pernik.

The area of the site in Gorni Bogrov is about 10 ha with a capacity of 400 000 tons and, if all of it is filled, it would be enough for one year. Boyadjiiska and Georgiev did not respond to the question of whether Sofia refuse would be stored there. Georgiev said because of the public tension the names of the possible depots would not be announced yet. He said the Government is engaged in working on a solution that would not result in a new refuse crisis.