Sofia’s Rubbish Collection Crisis Expected to Ease in Mid-January, Municipality Says

Sofia’s long-running waste collection crisis is expected to begin to stabilise by the middle of the month, according to the municipality. For now, however, the picture looks tragic again. By 15 January, waste collection vehicles are expected to be fully available in the Lyulin and Krasno Selo districts. The most problematic area remains Zone 3, which includes the Poduyane and Slatina neighbourhoods.

In many parts of the capital, if bins at one location have been emptied, those at the next two are overflowing.

“This is just absurd. There are places where rubbish hasn’t been collected for more than a month, maybe even longer. The side streets deeper into the neighbourhood are a disaster,” said one resident.

Another local, Vasil, warned of health risks:
“When the warmer weather comes, if this continues, diseases will spread. They do come by occasionally, but rubbish always builds up. They don’t collect it the way the previous companies did.”

City officials attribute the problem primarily to a shortage of vehicles. Twelve trucks are needed to properly service Poduyane and Slatina, but until yesterday only half that number were operating. As of today, nine vehicles are on the ground.

“We have new equipment as of today,” said Nadezhda Bobcheva, Sofia’s deputy mayor for ecology. “I hope we can service it quickly and complete all the necessary procedures so it can be deployed and match the capacity previously used in these two districts. Our ambition was to resolve this yesterday, but given the available equipment and staff, we hope to solve the problem next week.”

While the municipality has been working on a solution for months, residents in the affected areas continue to face overflowing bins carrying waste from last year. The Sofia Inspectorate insists that cleaning schedules are broadly similar to those in place before the crisis.

“Priority was given to containers along public transport routes, which were cleaned daily, while bins on internal streets were serviced on set days,” said Nikolay Nedelkov, director of the Sofia Inspectorate. “I cannot say that containers have not been cleaned since the 22nd, because even a week without cleaning would result in scenes like the ones we are seeing now. All locations have been serviced at least once during this period.”

Asked why some sites are cleaned several times while others have reportedly not been cleared since Christmas, the head of Sofia’s Waste Treatment Enterprise, Nikolay Savov, pointed to access issues.

“There are locations where our machinery cannot reach due to parked cars or additional barriers that trucks cannot manoeuvre around. This creates problems. We are currently working with the administration to relocate some bins by 10, 15 or 20 metres on certain streets,” he said.

Residents have also criticised the quality of service.

“The problem is that many of the workers collecting the rubbish are very inexperienced,” said Alexander, another local. “They drop bins into the trucks, the trucks themselves are not in good condition, and the drivers struggle to manoeuvre in these narrow streets.”

Meanwhile, the co-leaders of Yes, Bulgaria, Ivaylo Mirchev and Bozhidar Bozhanov, have held an emergency meeting with Sofia Mayor Vasil Terziev. They have called for the establishment of a crisis task force to urgently address both the waste collection and snow-clearing problems in the capital.