Improving waste management on the territory of Sofia Municipality by implementing a pilot project for three municipal schemes for separate waste collection and recycling
Sofia Municipality ·Bulgaria
About this project
<p style="text-align: justify"><span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif">Every year Sofia generates nearly 75,000 tons of food waste or about 13% of all generated waste. Regardless of the modern facility for production of electricity and compost from food waste, only a small part of the city's food waste goes there, the larger - ends up with other waste. Proper disposal of end-of-life automotive tires is a necessary prevention against unauthorized disposal and subsequent incineration for heating, which releases toxic compounds into the atmosphere.</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify"><span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif">This is why one of the main goals of this project is to introduce three schemes for separate collection and recovery of food waste and end of life tires through the development of a system for separate collection "door to door" of food waste in Verdikal, Bankya, Simeonovo, Dragalivtsi and Vitosha District. A web-based information system for digitalization of the process of food waste collection will identify specific consumption patterns and trends in waste generation in order to prevent the uncontrolled waste disposal. The result will be more the food waste being recycled and the share of recycled tires in Sofia will increase. </span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify"><span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif">Moreover, a system for separate collection of "voluntary transfer" of obsolete car tires for the territory of Sofia Large Municipality will be developed and primary materials from which they are made will be utilized. </span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify"><span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif">The project also included activities for increasing the skills and competencies of the specialists in connection with the application of the principles of the circular economy. Three-day training will be provided for municipal employees with a topic covering the EU environmental policy, the sustainable development and circular economy, the life cycle of raw materials and products and waste management, business and financial models in the circular economy as well as re-use principles and objectives and good practices from Norway which could be implemented on a local level. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif">More information could be found here: </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif"><a href="https://www.sofia.bg/">https://www.sofia.bg/</a></span></span></p>
Bilateral cooperation results
In order of the implementation of the activity, the following was realised: In the period of 25 - 27 April 2023 , a team from Sofia Municipality and the Sofia Inspectorate visited the Kingdom of Norway within the framework of Activity 5 Dissemination of good practices for waste management from donor countries, project BGENVIRONMENT-3.002-0011 Improving waste management on the territory of Sofia Municipality through the implementation of a pilot project for three municipal schemes for separate collection and recycling of waste, funded under the programme "Environmental protection and climate change". - Good practices for implementation of waste separation campaigns were investigated, and in order to explore the possibilities for their application in the implementation of waste separation campaigns by the Metropolitan Municipality, experts prepared a Good Practices Report, which is attached to this report; - Meetings were held with Oslo Municipality, Aasker Municipality, Sirkula Recycling Station and their second-hand shopping centre Resirkula, located in the municipality of Hamar and serving 4 neighbouring municipalities and the Magic Factory, an experience centre where students and other interested parties can easily learn in an understandable and practical way how the biogas cycle works, during which municipal practices for conducting communication campaigns to raise awareness of the population on separate collection and recycling were discussed.
Project partners
- International Development Norway AS Donor project partner· Norway