site.btaAudit Confirms that Sofia Waste Treatment Plant Is Not Doing Its Job, Warns of Possible Waste Crisis

Sofia's waste treatment plant (WTP) is not doing its job and there is a potential risk that, if urgent action is not taken, Sofia could experience a waste crisis in the next three years, WTP's new management said after an audit, as quoted by the Sofia City Hall. The audit was ordered by Sofia's new Mayor, Vassil Terziev, who said about a month ago that while the WTP is expected to process 90% of all waste that reaches it, it actually recycles only 10% and landfills 90%.

The first audit that Terziev ordered after taking office was at the Sofia WTP and it led to a shakeup in its management.

The audit also found that the refuse-derived fuel (RDF) from the processing of municipal solid waste is of poor quality and is not wanted by RDF-using companies.

The landfill's waste cells are filling up faster than planned and there is a risk of a potential Sofia waste crisis in two to three years. 

The previous Sofia leadership terminated a new contract for waste recovery and the old one cannot be fully implemented due to systematic problems in the operation of the WTP, the City Hall said.

The waste plant has a target to produce 185,000 t of RDF but the actual output is less than 80,000 t. For 2020, 2021 and 2022, of the nearly 555,000 t of RDF produced, only half - 229,000 t - was submitted for incineration. That means that only 41% of the RDF produced during the said period was recovered and the remainder was landfilled. The filling of the last waste disposal cell has started earlier than planned. 

By design, the last waste storage cell can be filled up for six years. However, calculations show that it has significantly less capacity and will be filled much sooner. One of the main reasons for that is the poor management of the RDF production processes. 

Building new cells will take longer than filling the existing one. The time for the land purchase procedures, design and construction will take about four years and will cost about BGN 21 million, which was the cost for cells 3 and 4, says also the new WTP management.

It adds that in December, the waste plant introduced measures that increased RDF recovery by 35% compared to November. 

"Despite the measures taken, we are faced with the absurd situation of having to reduce the production of RDF because there is no one to sell it to," the plant says. A new procurement for RDF is to be launched and efforts are made to improve quality.

The conclusions of the audit were immediately rejected as groundless by the press office of the GERB party which controlled Sofia before the October 29, 2023 elections. They accuse the new leadership of the Bulgarian capital of lacking capacity to solve the problems and manage the processes in the Municipal Council, and say that the purpose of fabricating crisis is to "divert attention from the scandals which have been accompanying the new Sofia government from day one" and "to pressure the political opponents and earn political dividends". 

"The GERB-UDF group in the Sofia Municipal Council calls on Mayor Vasil Terziev and his team to take adequate measures to deal with the governance crisis in the capital and to clean the streets of broken branches and overflowing waste bins. We urge Vasil Terziev to immediately stop the groundless mud-slinging, which will not help him to silence the voices of the citizens dissatisfied with his actions and inaction. We promise to remain a fierce opposition until the Sofia leadership show that they can protect the interests of the Sofia residents," the statement goes.

While GERB-UDF and Terziev's Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) coalition are sharing the central government, they remain antagonized on local level in Sofia. The result so far has been a failure of the Municipal Council to elect its chair because the biggest group, CC-DB, can't secure enough votes to push through their candidate for the chairmanship, Boris Bonev - and the Municipal Council cannot be fully functional without a chair.