Institute for Ecological Modernisation

Conference on "Specific municipal waste streams and controversial practices in their management"

On 15^thand 16^thof November, in AdmiralHotel – GoldenSands resort, an international conference was held, entitled Specific municipal waste streams and controversial practices in their management. The conference was organized as a closing stage of the project Developing a model for sustainable water and waste management for rural areas in Bulgaria, financed by the MATRA programme of the Dutch government.

The challenging title of the conference was provoked by the tradition of the conferences, dedicated to waste management, to discuss and promote only the so-called “good practices”. At the same time it is well-known that not all practices in this field are “good”, and if we want to know which the good ones are, we have to be aware of the bad practices. Due to this reason, one of the main issues of the conference was related to considering some of the classical technical, technological and financial scams, which the waste specialists should be familiar with in order to protect themselves in a timely manner in the context of modernization of the waste management system and the increasingly popular public-private partnerships. The expert from the Dutch organization WASTE – Anne Scheinberg, presented an analysis of concrete cases and methods for misconduct that have occurred in different parts of the world – Europe, North America, South America, and the far East.

The main part of the conference was dedicated to waste management in rural areas in Bulgaria (villages, villa areas, resort settlements). Besides the specifics of the rural waste management systems, the conference also presented the results from a number of technical analyses that have been carried out by the Institute for ecological modernization in cooperation with Technical University – Varna and Institute of Soil Science “N.Pushkarov” – Sofia, which are related to the widely publicized and yet not well-known home composting methods. The conference also featured lectures delivered by representatives of the Balkan Institute of Labour and Social Policy and by the Regional Development Agency.

The conference participants analyzed specific aspects of central and local policy, legislation and waste management practices in Bulgaria that hinder the application of more effective and more modern waste management methods, especially in rural areas. Based on the discussions an official letter will be prepared with recommendations for changes in legislation and in the national waste management strategy, which letter will be sent to the competent authorities in Bulgaria.

The conference was attended by more than 50 representatives of the district administrations, municipalities, Regional Environmental Inspectorates, Regional Health Inspectorates, scientific institutes, NGOs and private companies.