National Council for Tripartite Cooperation: Garbage Fee in Bulgaria May be Calculated in 3 Different Ways

Bulgaria's National Council for Tripartite Cooperation has proposed new options for calculating the garbage fee in Bulgaria.

If the new rules become a reality, municipalities will have to choose between three options for calculating the fee, bTV reported.

The project foresees "the polluter to pay" and this will lead to increase of the household garbage tax. If the new rules become a reality, municipalities will have to choose between three options for calculating the fee - according to the number of people living in a property or the number of employees in an office will have an impact on the amount of the garbage fee. Second option would be based on the capacity of the dumped garbage, or third - system based on special bin bags.

A combination of the above-mentioned methods is also an option.

The project also includes a 5-year smooth transition, which prohibits an increase in individual garbage tax by more than 20% per year for households.

The waste management in Switzerland, for example, is based on the polluter pays principle. Bin bags are taxed with pay-per-bag fees in three quarters of the communes and the recycling rate doubled in twenty years. The recycling rate for municipal solid waste exceeds 50% (with an objective of 60% in 2020).

However, although the recycling rate of 54 percent is above the European average of 28 percent (2015), Switzerland is among the largest waste producers in Europe (730 kilogrammes of waste per capita in 2014). In 2009, 2'801'285 tons of waste from households and small businesses was recycled and 2'680'359 tons of municipal waste was incinerated.