Sofia Mayor, Environment Minister Clash over Waste Management in Capital City

Nikoleta Vassileva, Borislava Bibinovska

A waste truck empties waste containers, Sofia, August 25, 2023 (BTA Photo/Hristo Kasabov)

Sofia,

19.03.2025 18:05

(BTA)

The Mayor of Sofia, Vasil Terziev, strongly defended the waste management operations in the capital. He held a news briefing Wednesday dismissing concerns raised by the Minister of Environment and Water, Manol Genov, about the city's waste disposal plant, which he said is nearing the limit of its capacity. According to Terziev, the issue is not with the Sadina waste processing plant but rather with illegal dumpsites across Sofia, which “are poisoning the soil on public and private properties”, to use his words.

The briefing was convened in response to a statement made by Minister Genov March 14, where he included Sofia in a list of municipalities allegedly struggling to properly dispose of waste.

Terziev emphasized that improving waste management at Sofia's plant has been one of his administration's top priorities. He revealed that when he took office, over 90% of Sofia's waste was being landfilled, and there was a looming risk that within a year, the city would run out of places to dispose of its waste. He proudly noted that within a year, his administration had managed to reduce landfill disposal to below 10%, thanks to agreements for the recycling of white RDF (refuse-derived fuel).

"We took over something broken and fixed it," Terziev said. He added that these improvements had been long overdue and were not achieved in previous years. His remarks highlighted the administration's efforts to tackle not only waste disposal but also illegal dumping that continues to damage the environment.

At his news briefing, Mayor Terziev complained of what he described as a "multi-institutional attack" against the waste plant and waste management,. He criticized the lack of support for municipal efforts to address illegal disposal of medical waste and illegal waste dumping. "All we're getting are threats and ridicule. There’s a campaign of jealousy because we’ve fixed something that was broken," Terziev asserted.

The Sofia Deputy Mayor for Ecology, Nadezhda Bobcheva, also criticized the attacks on the waste plant. She stressed that it was one of the few municipal services directly under the mayor’s oversight and that it had been one of the most scrutinized institutions: in 2023 alone, the Regional Inspectorate for Environment and Water (RIEW) conducted eight inspections of the plant.

Concerns over accountability

Minister Genov, on the other hand, expressed concerns about the transparency and accountability of Sofia's waste management system. At a news briefing following Terziev’s, he pointed out the lack of clarity regarding how much waste the Sofia waste plant was processing and whether the city’s municipality was providing accurate information. "We have been waiting for months to discuss the existing issues with the Sofia Mayor," Genov said, calling the current waste management practices in Sofia "alarming."

Genov also stressed that the legislation places with mayors the responsibility for not allowing illegal waste dumping.

He added that an audit is underway and the Regional Inspectorate of Environment and Water has been instructed what documents to demand "in order to establish the state of the waste management system in Sofia".

The group of GERB-UDF in the Municipal Council sided with the Minister as they held their own news conference to say that they are concerned about the Sofia waste plant, based on documents and facts they are aware of. They also said that such issues need to be addressed by the competent committee in the Municipal Council and the Mayor appears to be boycotting the work of the environment committee.

/NF/