From 1 January 2025, new regulations of the Local Taxes and Fees Act enter into force, according to which the existing model for determining the amount of the municipal waste fee based on the tax assessment, respectively the book value of real estate, is changed into an entirely new one, whereby the amount of the municipal waste becomes the leading basis for determining the amount of the municipal waste fee for each household.
The amount of the fee is the sum of the costs for waste collection, transportation to the facilities and installations, their treatment, as well as the costs of maintaining the cleanliness of public areas.
A basis for determining the municipal waste fee for waste collection, transportation and treatment will be the amount of the household waste, determined according to the number and capacity of the necessary containers for the waste collection and the frequency of their transportation.
In other words, from January 2025, the greater the amount of collected household waste for each property and the more often its removal is required, the more the fee due will increase – the so-called waste fee.
Analyses show that the Regulation change will significantly increase the cost of the service for each household. The only option for this not to happen is for the local population to be convinced conscientiously and responsibly to start collecting its waste separately in several streams. The aim is to keep the amount of remaining mixed household waste as low as possible and to keep the costs of its collection and transportation to a minimum, which will directly affect the waste tax.
In support of this difficult task Pomorie Municipality started the implementation of the project “Holistic approach to waste management in the transition to a circular economy”, aimed at a large-scale informational campaign among citizens and businesses, collection and analysis of the achieved results and elaboration of an entirely new tax model according to the principle “Pay as you throw away” (PAYT).
The first results of the campaign “I know what I throw away” in residential building 13 from Svoboda district are visible. Within a month, 30 volunteer households threw away 610 kg of waste. At the moment, this costs the Municipality BGN 610 for collection, transportation and treatment, which, according to the amendments to the law, should be distributed as a waste fee for these 30 households. Through their conscientious attitude towards the campaign, the households managed to reduce this expenditure by up to 70%, as of the total amount of waste – 610 kg, 25% are separately collected paper, plastic, metal and glass, 61% are biodegradable food waste that is processed in the Burgas Anaerobic Plant and only 14% is mixed household waste. In this case the waste fee for their collection, transport and treatment according to the new payment model would be only about BGN 200.
On this basis Pomorie Municipality will focus its efforts to achieve these results on a larger scale. For this purpose, a pilot area was selected for the project, namely – the whole Svoboda district in the town of Pomorie.
The first meetings with representatives of the buildings are going to be announced soon, followed by scheduled meetings with the residents of each building, a total of 31 residential buildings falling within the scope of the pilot project.
Project ‘Holistic approach to waste management in the transition to a circular economy, implemented by Pomorie Municipality is co-funded by the LIFE Programme of the European Union.