site.btaSofia Mayor Refutes Health Minister's Warning of Risk of Epidemic due to Plant's Refusal to Take Medical Waste

Sofia Mayor Vasil Terziev said in an interview for bTV on Thursday morning that there is no risk of an epidemic. Terziev's statement came after Health Minister Silvi Kirilov warned on Tuesday that there is a huge risk of an epidemic due to Sofia's municipal waste treatment plant decision to stop taking waste from hospitals.

The plant justified its decision with having found that household waste had been mixed with hazardous medical waste from hospitals.

The Mayor stated that those who would use an epidemic as a scare tactic are those who are unwilling to do their jobs.

On Wednesday, Terziev said that the regional health inspectorates and the Regional Inspectorate of Environment and Water should do their job and added: "The main question is why this kind of waste continues to be mixed with household waste; and why when we say that there is a problem, we carry out inspections, we prove it with pictures, we are told no, there is no problem." Terziev said that rules get broken, because this comes out cheaper than paying to burn the hazardous waste.

The Mayor stated that the Ministry of Health knows which the offending hospitals are, as the Sofia Municipality listed them in the documents provided to the institutions whose responsibility is to solve the problem.

The Regional Inspectorate of Environment and Water has been notified. An on-site inspection established violations, Terziev reported and added that it would be better to have the authorities inspect not the garbage processing plant but of garbage collection companies.