Public Environmental Center for Sustainable Development (PECSD) launches petition against the incineration of imported waste in Bulgaria. The document will be submitted to the National Assembly, the Council of Ministers and the Ministry of Environment and Water (MOEW).
Here is the full text that you can sign here:
Dear Members of Parliament,
Mr Prime Minister,
Dear Minister,
We, the citizens of the Republic of Bulgaria, insist on:
Prohibited the import into the territory of Bulgaria of waste with code 19 12 10, the so-called RDFs (modified fuels derived from waste) that release hazardous substances during their combustion and a complete ban on the import of all other waste destined for incineration on the territory of Bulgaria.
Identification of the properties of each waste prior to its import on the basis of laboratory tests, including on the combustion of waste.
Adopt measures to improve controls on compliance with the applicable regulations related to the import of all types of waste for the purpose of recovery, disposal, storage or re-export.
Creation and maintenance of a public register of all companies that import, transport, store and utilize waste on the territory of Bulgaria.
Establishment and maintenance of a public register of imported, disposed, utilized and re-exported waste on the territory of Bulgaria.
According to data released in 2018 by the European Environment Agency, Bulgaria ranks first in Europe in terms of air pollution and first in terms of deaths from dirty air (211 per 100,000 people). In 2017, Bulgaria was sanctioned by the European Court of Justice for regularly exceeding the limit values for fine particulate matter in the air. A lawsuit against our country was filed last year for failing to comply with sulfur dioxide standards.
We are convinced that much of the pollution is due to the combustion, called “recovery” of waste imported as RDF fuel, with heterogeneous, often unclear and dubious composition.
The losses that our economy will suffer from the ban on the import of waste for combustion are disproportionate compared to the damage to the health of the Bulgarians and the image that is gaining our country as a “destination for waste”.
Translator: Valentina Vagge
