Pomorie Municipality signed a Grant agreement for the first time with the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) for the implementation of a project “Holistic approach to waste management in the transition to a circular economy”, co-financed by the LIFE programme of the European Union.
It is a pilot project for Bulgaria, which aims to introduce a comprehensive and innovative approach to waste management. The system will bind the amount of the household waste fee to the amount of generated waste – the “pay as you throw” system (PAYT). For this reason, a pilot area of the city of Pomorie for introduction of the new waste collection scheme will be selected, using the experience of the Municipality of Parma – Italy.
The ITC platform (internet-based platform and mobile applications) for integrated waste management includes reporting the frequency of the container lifting and the type of each container/bucket registered in the platform, equipped with an RFID tag/label, transmission in real time (upon arrival of a signal from the truck) of the GPS position of the truck, etc.
Analytical services will make it possible to prepare aggregated statistics on the frequency of collections and the corresponding volume of each container, as well as to calculate a household waste fee for each generator separately.
A mobile application will also be developed through which citizens can submit their user address information for the provision of common or other containers. It will also contain information on days and hours of collection for each type of waste, street cleaning dates, etc.
The main results of implementation of the platform will be improved planning of waste removal, optimization of routes, reduction of costs, as well as a cleaner environment – due to the elimination of overflowing street containers and scattered waste around them.
The Mayor Ivan Aleksiev and the project team held their first working meeting with the other bulgarian partners – Ecobulpak Bulgaria, Theoremus and Club Economika 2000, all united by the cause of implementing the innovative circular waste management system, which will reduce the amount of landfilled waste in Pomorie Municipality and increase the amount of the separately collected waste. In order to get acquainted with the Bulgarian practice, a visit to the city of Pomorie is also planned for the Italian project partner – the environmental organization Zero Waste Italy.
The project duration is 3 years.