Bulgarije: waste recycling and composting in Varna (PESP06035)

Bulgarije kent een groot afvalprobleem. Stortplaatsen zullen in de loop der jaren overvol raken. Ter voorkoming van deze situatie kan het recyclen c.q. hergebruik van afval een uitkomst bieden. Met de toetreding tot de Europese Unie verplicht Bulgarije zich om in de toekomst de EU-wetgeving ten aanzien van afvalverwerking en recycling na te leven. Dit betekent dat de komende jaren forse investeringen noodzakelijk zijn voor de (her)ontwikkeling van stortplaatsen en verbetering van de organisatie van afvalstromen bij verwerking van huishoudelijk en industrieel afval.
De huidige stortplaats van de gemeente Varna zal naar verwachting in 2007 vol zijn. Dit is de reden waarom de gemeente de komende jaren het afvalprobleem grondig wil aanpakken en momenteel haar opties aan het bezien is. Het idee bestaat om op een oud industrieel terrein een nieuwe stortplaats bestemd voor afvalrecycling en -verwerking te ontwikkelen.

De studie is afgerond per: 01-06-2007

Summary

Bulgaria has adopted the necessary legislation on waste management - it has a Waste Management Act and a National Waste Management Programme. According to the good intentions, this legislation was supposed to decide what to do with 4.1 million tonnes of municipal solid, 8.2 million tonnes of industrial non-hazardous and the 760,000 tonnes of hazardous waste that the country generates every year.

In Varna, the municipal government is considering reluctantly to participate in the regional landfill under construction near Varna. The city prefers to keep a more strict and direct control over its waste problem. Varna is now reviewing options to develop a city landfill and prefers to combine this with programs for source separation and separation of waste on the landfill. The site could be developed on an existing industrial area in a nearby town where most of the industry has stopped operation. Private investors are actively contacted to develop such a separation and landfill activity.

Kaolin, with experience in the extraction and handling of minerals is one of these private investors. Kaolin has approached Povvik/Redox to review the options for separation on site and to ensure that the landfill and separation technologies meet the latest legislative requirements. Separation should focus on those waste materials that can be sold in the present recycling market (glass, paper, metals and plastics) and on processing the organic part of the waste via composting to reduce the amount of waste landfilled and to comply with the regulations derived form the landfill directive. When it comes out that municipal solid waste treatment with recycling and composting is feasible Kaolin will invest and manage the complete solid waste treatment including the exploitation of the recycling and composting plant.

The advantage for Varna (and the main reason for the city to contact Kaolin in this project) is to review the options for a site in Devnia, 25 km from Varna. This site is near to a completely abandoned industrial site with sufficient space and geological conditions to develop a landfill.

The objective of this study is to identify the opportunity on building of a recycling and composting plant for the treatment of the municipal solid waste of Varna. The plant should be built on the land of Kaolin in Devnya. In the plant also construction and demolition waste should be processed.

Considering the results of the study the following remarks can be made:
the total amount of municipal solid waste that becomes available is approx. 110,000 tons. At this moment no separate collection is planned.

With the tests with the Redox mobile recycling unit it is proven that processing of mixed household waste and demolition waste gives a good result with recyclables with a good quality.

The financial analysis shows the viability and profitability of the project. Recycling in combination with landfilling of the residual waste gives a better result than landfilling of 100 percent of the waste. Biodrying of the residual waste results in even a higher profit while the landfill area can be used during a longer period of time. Processing of future source separated waste even increases the result.

The environmental assessment proves that from the environmental point of view the option with separate collection and composting is the best solution. With a small difference the option with recycling and composting becomes the second best score while the option with only landfill gets the lowest score as could be expected.