site.btaSofia Expands Separate Waste Collection with Nearly 900 New Container Points

Sofia Municipality signed new five-year contracts with the three licensed packaging waste recovery organizations, providing nearly 900 new collection points with colour-coded containers and more than 3.6 million litres of additional capacity for separate collection of packaging waste, the municipality said here on Tuesday.

The contracts were signed with Ecopack Bulgaria, Ecobulpack Bulgaria and Bulecopack. They provide for a denser container network, more convenient collection bins, improved servicing and tighter oversight of operators.

Under the agreements, the total capacity of colour-coded containers in Sofia will increase by nearly 36%. Almost 30,000 tonnes of packaging waste were collected in the capital in 2025. If the current efficiency of the system is maintained, the expansion could raise that amount to around 41,000 tonnes a year, the municipality said.

Sofia Mayor Vassil Terziev was quoted as saying that more than half of the waste thrown into grey containers can be recycled. "Most Sofia residents do not know that they have already paid for packaging waste management through the price of the products they buy. When that packaging ends up in the grey container, we pay again through municipal costs," Terziev said.

With collection, transport and processing of one tonne of mixed waste costing more than EUR 200, potentially avoided expenses could exceed EUR 2 million a year. The new requirements followed two years of work, appeals, court disputes and difficult negotiations. An agreement was ultimately reached with the recovery organizations, allowing the new contracts to be signed while retaining higher service standards.

The Sofia Inspectorate is also stepping up checks on improper waste disposal. Since the beginning of October, it has drawn up 35 violation reports and issued 149 on-the-spot fines to individuals and companies for disposing of recyclable waste in household waste containers. The largest number of violations was recorded in the Triaditsa, Serdika, Sredets, Lyulin and Nadezhda boroughs.

At the same time, Sofia Municipality is taking steps to standardize the separate collection system in the Kremikovtsi and Ovcha Kupel boroughs, which are not covered by the new agreements with the three organizations.

Deputy Mayor for Environment Nikolay Nedelkov submitted a report to the Sofia Municipal Council proposing changes to the current model in the two boroughs. The proposal would remove the requirement for the service to be assigned to municipal company Sofekostroy and repeal an earlier decision to spend municipal funds on containers and specialized equipment.

Six months ago, representatives of Ecobulpack Bulgaria, Ecopack Bulgaria and Bulecopack said at a joint event that recycling requires precise logistics and organization. They noted that Bulgaria has more than 40,000 colour-coded containers in over 200 municipalities and that collected waste must be transported to the nearest sorting centre before being processed at facilities capable of using recycled material. In some cases, recyclable waste is also transported to nearby countries such as Turkiye, Romania or North Macedonia.