Half of Sofia’s baled refuse will be moved out of temporary storage areas in Kremikovtzi and Gara Iskur districts, Environment Minister Djevdet Chakurov said on October 9 2008 at the opening of a refuse sorting installation in the village of Trebich near Sofia.

The mayors of Silistra and Harmanly towns agreed to accept some of the baled refuse and, on October 10, the first bales set to Silistra.

In the coming week, the ministry will again send letters to the municipalities of Montana, Rousse and Sevlievo requesting they accept some of Sofia’s refuse in their landfills. Chakurov gave the example of Harmanli mayor Mihail Liskov, who requested support from the Government to build their infrastructure in return of the act of accepting Sofia’s refuse.

Chakurov said it was better to construct the refuse processing plant in Sofia, which is on the municipality’s agenda, under a public-private partnership, as opposed to one third of the money under Environment operational programme be spent on the factory. A consequence of this would be that Bulgaria’s European Union requirement on constructing regional landfills throughout the country would be impeded.

The environmental assessment procedures of the planned Sofia factory have started. After public hearings on the environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the proposed project, set to begin in November, the Expert environmental council of Sofia Regional Inspectorate on Environment and Water Affairs is expected to make its decision on whether the project should proceed.

Deputy Sofia mayor in charge of environment Maria Boyadjiiska said that the refuse depot in the future refuse factory would start accepting refuse before the plant starts operating. The plan is the depot should start operating in the start of 2010, while the factory will be opened in 2011. The project became necessary because the capacity of Sofia's Souhodol landfill was exhausted.