That is why we would like to offer you a brief overview of the topic, which may give you some answers to the questions you asked yourselves and will bring you more information for the hazardous waste from the households.

Which waste is hazardous and why?

Hazardous waste is each waste, which has dangerous / toxic properties and which can be harmful to human health or to the environment. Hazardous waste can be in different physical state – solid, liquid or gas. It can be dangerous for people because of direct contact, or because it pollutes the air, the water or the soil.

Hazardous waste can be divided into 4 basic groups, based on their distinguishing properties:

– from the households;

– from the industry;

– from the constructions;

– radioactive.

Each hazardous waste has one or more dangerous property and they can be – explosive, flammable, corrosive, irritating to the skin and damaging to the eyes, causing acute toxic effects, carcinogenic, infectious, etc.

The focus here will be put especially to the dangerous waste from the households, which every person, consciously or not, accumulate. Did you know that the package of the bathroom cleaner is classified as hazardous waste? The reason is that it is contaminated. Even that the package is made from plastic, it should not be delivered in the container for plastic products, but it should be treated as hazardous waste.

As hazardous waste should be classified and some old batteries, as well as some old electric appliances. If this waste is toxic or not, depends on the substances, which they include, like lead, mercury, asbestos, phosphors and etc.

Very often the cleaners, which we use in our household are classified as dangerous, because they include substance, harmful for human health.

And of course – the old medicines! The old medicines are classified as dangerous waste and we should not deliver them to the common containers, but to special places.

We should say that each good, which can become a hazardous waste, should be marked with the specific symbols. If you are wondering if the cleaner, that you have got, is dangerous or not, you should look for some of the symbols, depicted on the package:

What should we do with the hazardous waste, if we lived in Bulgaria?

After we determined what can be classified as hazardous waste, we should say what we should do with the dangerous waste, we produced.

There is not a unified system for hazardous waste, working on the territory of the whole country. The problems with them are rather solved on regional / municipal level and each municipal decides by itself how will gather the hazardous waste.

The National System for separate collection of hazardous waste from households is the widest and most effective system in Bulgaria. It operates from 2014 and cover the needs of more than 2,5 million citizens. This system gathers the hazardous waste from citizens’ homes on a demand or it works, based on mobile points, where people can deliver the hazardous waste, which they have already collected. More information for the mobile points – when and where there will be such point – you can find on this link – https://bit.ly/3PtxKUc The schedule is made for each single year and the information is constantly updated. However, the system does not operate on the territory of the whole country.

In addition, within the project “Pilot Models for Environmentally Friendly Collection and Temporary Storage of Hazardous Household Waste from Households”, financed under The Bulgarian-Swiss Cooperation Programme and with the support of The Enterprise for Management of the Environmental Protection Activities (EMEPA), 5 pilot centres for collection of hazardous household waste were built in the Municipalities – Shumen, Razgrad, Sozopol, Saedinenie and Levski.

Why it is so important to deliver the hazardous waste for recycling?

We all know that is important to deliver our waste for recycling, because thus it is transformed from unnecessary thing into raw material. But why it is even more important to gather and deliver the dangerous waste?

By sorting the hazardous waste from the general stream, we reduce the risk they go into and contaminate the environment or become a potential risk to human health. On the other hand, when we deliver them on certain places, we eliminate the risk they can become part of the general waste stream and to contaminate it. By this, we help for the correct gathering and treating of the waste and for their subsequent use as raw materials.

Or in other words, if we delivered the package from the bath cleaner (where there are some of the upper symbols) in a container for plastic waste, not only we do not help with the proper waste collection, but we also contaminate the other packages, which are correctly delivered.  

It turns out that every person accumulates a lot of hazardous waste daily as packages from cleaners (from plastic, paper, metal), batteries, toxic ingredients and etc. Till now, humanity has not found a better way to deal with this kind of waste, than recycling and using it for energy recovering. This is why it is so important for us to be responsible and to deliver the hazardous waste from our households to the designated places, where they will be recycling and will be turned into raw materials (when this is technically possible and financially sustainable). Doing this, we not only decrease the amount of the waste, protect the human health and the environment, but we also help to reduce the climate changes indirectly, which could be a huge challenge in the future for the whole humanity.

What is the pathway of the hazardous waste?

As we already mention, the hazardous waste from the households in Bulgaria are collected mostly by mobile points. After that they are delivered to designated places (in some municipals the hazardous waste could be delivered directly to these places from the citizens), where they are recovered or neutralized. This can only be done after checking the documentation, measuring the waste on a scale and registration the amount of the waste in internet, after that there should be inspection and taking a sample. The designated places themselves also should be checked by the operator. The operator should control the type and the composition of the waste, received for treatment, should monitor for the technology for recover or disposal, should monitor the condition of the technological equipment and the reliability of construction structures and facilities, should check the emissions of harmful substances released in the air and in the water, as well as the soil pollution.

However, it turns out that in Bulgaria not each hazardous waste can be treated, because it cannot be recycled or reused. In the common case, it is about for the hazardous wastes, produced by the industry. This requires these kinds of wastes to be transported to other countries, where it is possible to be processed and reused as raw material. The transport is done by land, water or air, according the international law and under strict control by the monitoring authorities. This is needed to be stopped the hazardous effect upon humanity and environment. 

European hazardous waste management

Despite improvements in hazardous waste management, according to European Environment Agency (EEA) reports, more measures would be required to prevent the build-up of hazardous waste across Europe. The Agency constantly reviews the implementation of programms for preventing the accumulation of waste, which an be hazardous to human health and the environment.

The EEA is focused on preventing the accumulation of hazardous waste, which is one of the priorities of the environmental politics in Europe. The Agency reviews the tendency in waste accumulation of hazardous waste, generated in Europe, as whole, and as well as in each single European country and makes a general overview of the goals, tasks, indicators and measures to prevent their formation.

According to some data, the hazardous waste on the territory of EU is about 4 % from the whole waste. These are mostly mineral, chemical and medical waste. And if the management of the of the waste, generated by the construction, mining and quarrying, and household sectors is correctly done, this waste can be turned into good source of raw material.

A lot of programmes aimed to prevent waste generation, operated in the EU. They include special measures for decreasing the generation of hazardous waste. Most of the measures are linked to curbing production and including bans on toxic materials. However, prevention of accumulation of hazardous waste has lower priority, than management of the waste in general. Prioritisation of the hazardous waste problems at the EU level is one of the drivers for better prevention at national or regional levels.

The problems with the accuracy and the quality of information for hazardous waste are not to be neglected. The changes in the classification of the waste and their designation as hazardous or not, lead to a number of inaccuracies in their description and may affect the accuracy of national data.

In conclusion, we must emphasize that it is important for the society to know and to distinguish which waste is hazardous and which one is not, so that it can correctly collect and transfer the generated waste for subsequent treatment. In this regard, it is good for the society to have more information about hazardous wastes from the households, and to be aware how they are marked and where they should be delivered. It will be a good practice if the access to designated places for the separate collection of hazardous waste will be facilitated. As well as the mobility points for this kind of waste should become more and should cover the territory of the whole country. And of course, each one of us should be aware which waste is hazardous and which one is not, how they are marked, how and where they should be delivered, because only our responsible behavior to the waste, that we accumulated, will lead to a clean and safe environment.

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Due to the above we think more and more often about borrowing things from our friends or family or just hiring them?

It turns out that the changing world leads to a new kind of needs – not to have things, but to have the opportunity to use them for a certain period and for an affordable praise. This leads to a new kind of economy – sharing economy, and of course – to new business models, the circular economy models.

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What is the Sharing Economy?

The sharing economy is becoming ever larger and more diverse, involving new and new spheres of public life. And even some people know what is the definition for sharing economy, it is need to be explain what is its essence.

The sharing economy is a new kind of phenomenon, which is much more different from the traditional linear economy, where we have resource–product–consumer–waste. The sharing economy is tightly linked with digital technologies and the opportunities they offer. Thanks to the technologies, there is a new business models, based on cooperation and exchange. This allows people to use services, assets, resources without transferring the ownership rights. In other words – the sharing economy gives the opportunity to use goods, without spending a lot of money on them.

In practice, we all use the sharing economy in one way or another. The more effectively we use the resources, the more efficiency is for the people and of course for the environment. The biggest benefit of the sharing economy is for customer, the individual who wants to satisfy a particular need for a certain period of time.

If you are wondering if your business is part of the sharing economy, you might check that by respond to these three questions:

– your business purpose is to have maximum recovery of goods and services through sharing.

– your business is not leading to ownership of goods, but offers joint use; – your business works via platforms/models, which provides contacts between a lot of entities – providing goods or services, from one side and consumers, from the other;

What are the benefits of the sharing economy?

The sharing economy has some negative features, mostly refer to the regulation and lack of adequate legislation in the sector. In this text we will explain what are the benefits for the consumers and how this kind of economy makes life easier for the ordinary people.

Here are some of the benefits that we discovered:

• First, we should mention that thanks to the sharing economy we save money. If we take a look at the goods that can be hired, we will understand that the more expensive are the goods, the lower the percentage of market value they can be hired is. Or in other words, if the value of the car is about 30 000 EUR, we can rent it for 30 EUR, or even for 5 EUR per day. But if we need to rent a baby stroller, we can hire it for 5 BGN per day, having in mind that the value of the stroller is about 200 BGN. In bought cases it will be cheaper to rent instead to buy, if we need the goods for a short period of time.
• In addition, the sharing economy helps us not only to save money, but to save space too, without storing useless things. Collecting household goods for our children and grandchildren is a typical regional attitude, but this is out of fashion for a very long time. And even more. The new generations use certain goods only when they need them, without storing goods just in case. In this regard, more and more often the young people are tended to hire goods that they need, than to buy them. This means that they value the space more than the goods.
• Often, we owned an object, but we do not want or we can not transport it to another place, where we will need it for a while. And here comes the possibility to rent the same object, but where we are at that moment. Just imagine the following situation – a young family, living abroad, come back in Bulgaria, for a month. The family do not want to transport the baby stroller. The family rent a stroller, using internet platform, and the stroller wait them on the address they will live for a month.
• It turns out that the sharing economy is useful not only from material point of view. Thanks to this kind of economy, people create social connections. The shared workspaces and the shared traveling are typical examples.

We can generalize that the sharing economy is the opposite of culture of consuming and that it helps people not to store useless property, that in fact leads to loss of valuable resources. The sharing economy has social and ecological measuring, it creates solidarity between the citizens, revives the local economy, create jobs, makes the usage more rational, consolidates the use of some goods. This ensures a more responsible and sustainable consumption

The place of the sharing economy in EU

According to the European Commission, the European politics for sharing economy should become part of the politics of each of the European countries. The market value of the companies, which deal with this constantly increases. The sharing economy is based on the perfect match between supply and demand. And contrary to the fears of some business and some people, the sharing economy does not lead to job cuts, just the opposite –leads to new jobs and to the transforming of some traditional professions. And if no clear standards have been imposed on the sharing economy yet, more and more business models are moving towards it. Several sectors stand up, in which is the most intensive work for its more active application in European countries – mobility (transport), living spaces (renting for the purpose of tourism or longer-term residence), food supply (“from farm to fork” is an opportunity for people to eat personalized and healthy), opening the finances (developing crowdfunding), education (providing free trainings), solidarity economy (cooperation, mutual aid, volunteering in a community, which can be expressed as free cooking, cleaning, childcare, care for the elderly and etc.).

What types of sharing economy can be used in Bulgaria?

Except the familiar benefits of the sharing economy, like rent a car, carpooling, rent an apartment, house or etc., there are a lot other objects that can be hired in Bulgaria. We will take a look at some interesting direction in this type of economy.

Household machines

Have you ever been doing some home improvement and need a drill only for two holes, but didn’t know where to get one? Now you can solve this problem by visiting some of the house and garden hypermarkets, where you can rent cracker, perforator, drill, vacuum cleaner, water jet, lawnmower, trimmer, welding machine and even more.

Laptops and tablets

Almost everyone has a personal laptop or tablet, today. However, there are cases, when you need a certain laptop model or when you do not feel like you want to carry yours, or your laptop should be fixed, or you use it for something else. Or you may need more units for a seminar or training. Now you have the opportunity to rent such kind of technique for an hour, for some days or even for a week. There are internet platforms, which offer laptops and tablets for rent. And thanks to these platforms you can have a computer room with workplaces across the whole country. Or you may just do your work.

Baby products

There is no doubt that the baby accessories are one of the goods that most quickly go out of use. Apart the short usage term, not each baby product is suitable for every child. The prices of the baby products are high and if you buy everything you think your baby will need, it may turn out that you spent a lot of money for things, which you will never use in future.

To understand what your baby will like, you just can hire some products. We should mention that there is an internet platform especially for slings and ergonomic baby carriers. This is a great opportunity to see if your baby will be fine in such kind of carriers.

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Toys

More and more often we buy toys to our children, but they play for a while and just left them. That is how we get a lot of them, do not knowing what to do and where to store them. The sharing economy offers a decision of that problem, giving us the opportunity not to buy, but to rent. There are internet platforms in Bulgaria, which give us the chance to rent different toys for children at all ages and not to store them at home. Thus, when the children get fed up with a certain toy and forget it, we can easily replace it with another, again rental.

Formal and Evening Dressings

Almost everyone claims that “there is nothing to wear” and at the same time the wardrobe is full with hidden and well forgotten “treasures”. The sharing economy has the decision to this problem too – formal clothing and evening dressings for rent. This enables everyone to be irresistible at important events and at the same time not to spend a lot of money, as well as providing more space in the wardrobe.

The clothes may be choose using the catalogue, upload in the site. The delivery is made via courier, as well as the returning. There is one more asset – you do not need to clean the dressings. The company will do it instead of you.

Except all these specialized sites, there are a lot of others, which just make the connection between the people who want to hire and those who have goods for rent. Using these sites, you can rent almost everything – bikes, tents and camping gear, jewellery, tables and chairs and etc.

The sharing economy enables a more efficient use of the resources we have and a better and more favorable future for us, as the main inhabitants of the Earth. The good news is that the new generations are those who use the sharing economy most efficiently. More and more people realized that it is not important to own something, that the property is not an asset and leads to expenses. Most important is to have access to goods that you need to use. The sharing economy is very important for protecting the environment and reducing climate change by limiting consumer behavior and reducing the waste. The sharing economy has social effect, as generator of social contacts and solidarity.

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Training film for information platform for circular economy CEMIS, created by MAGISTERIUM Ltd. under project № BG16M1OP002-2.009-0036 „Pilot demonstration model for circular economy“, funded by the Operational Program „Environment 2014-2020“, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund of the European Union.

The film aims to explain the functionalities and train future users of the pilot demonstration model for a circular economy, how to use the platform and take advantage of its benefits. The film will contribute to increasing the number of people using the platform by explaining its functionalities and providing fast, easy, accessible and effective visual information.

Watch the video here:

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The event aims to present the planned activities and the results achieved in the implementation of the project.

The conference will be attended by:

– Eng. Tsvetomir Kalchev – project manager;
– Eng. Dimitrinka Kalcheva – financial manager;
– Eng. Georgi Zashev – Specialist „Information and Communication Technologies“;
– Victoria Belokonska – Waste Treatment Expert
– Marieta Karanikova – Expert on Waste Management
– Zdravka Videnova – Specialist „Information and Communication Technologies“;

Moderator of the event: Elitsa Hristova – Information and Communication Expert.

The conference will be held on January 12, 2022 at 11:00 am at the National Press Club BTA, 49 Tsarigradsko Shosse Blvd. and online on the Zoom platform.

Please request your participation by 18:00 on January 11, 2022 in the registration form: https://forms.gle/65PHNFNwhEYfe2sZA
After registration you will receive a link to access the online conference.

Your participation is important to us!

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The results and the effect after the public commissioning of the platform for circular economy CEMIS.BG were officially presented

The results and the achieved effect after the public commissioning of CEMIS were presented at a public event in the National Press Club BTA. This is the first and only open platform that provides informed choices about the opportunities and actions leading to reducing waste and extending the life of household products. Its official publication on the Internet took place on September 30, 2021 and since then it has become publicly available to all interested in applying the models of circular economy.

At the BTA event, the founders of CEMIS presented data on the number of users it has reached since its official commissioning, their activity and interaction with them. The project manager, Eng. Tsvetomir Kalchev, shared information about the expansion of the platform and inform that only two months after Sofia, the municipalities of Vratsa and Nikopol joined it.
In less than 3 months, the information from the platform reached over 100,000 users, and over 8,000 of them took advantage of the data and the opportunities it offers.

The first promotional video was released in December and was viewed more than 10,000 times in less than a week.

The specialist in information and communication technologies, Eng. Georgi Zashev, spoke about the new functionalities of CEMIS, the possibility for feedback and the growing role of users and interaction with it. Eng. Dimitrinka Kalcheva told about the enrichment of the platform with new content and about the section intended for children and youth.
„The section „For children and young people“ is designed specifically for children of school and preschool age. The section will contain interesting and educational information, games and environmental challenges, which aim to provide them with accessible and understandable information so that from an early age they understand the importance of separate waste collection, recycling and responsible use of resources. Our goal is to motivate children to be leaders in the change to a circular economy“, said the creators of the platform.

Watch the whole event here:

The platform was developed under project № BG16M1OP002-2.009-0036 „Pilot demonstration model for circular economy“, funded by the Operational Program „Environment 2014-2020“, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund of the EU with a beneficiary MAGISTERIUM LTD.

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INVITATION

Official presentation of the results and the effect after the public commissioning of CEMIS.BG –
Circular Economy Information Platform, developed under project № BG16M1OP002-2.009-0036 „Pilot Demonstration Model for Circular Economy“, funded by the Operational Program „Environment 2014-2020“, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund of the EU.

Dear ladies and gentlemen,

We are pleased to invite you to the official event to present the results and the effect after the public launch of CEMIS.BG – information platform for circular economy. The results and the effect will be presented at the event two months after the publication of the platform in the public space. The project team will reveal information about future plans for the expansion of the platform with new data and functionality, the inclusion of new municipalities in it and the new proposals for partnerships.

Participants:
Eng. Tsvetomir Kalchev – project manager;
Eng. Dimitrinka Kalcheva – financial manager;
Eng. Georgi Zashev – specialist „Information and Communication Technologies“;
Moderator of the event: Elitsa Hristova – information and communication expert.

The event will take place on December 16, 2021 at 11:00 am in the National Press Club BTA, 49 Tsarigradsko Shosse Blvd. and online on the Zoom platform.
Registration for participation: https://forms.gle/NyqaQz3Ta7tM6CpN7

The event is open to the media and the general public. There is no limit to the number of participants from one organization.

More information about the project can be found at: https://www.cemis.bg/ and https://magisterium.bg/bg/home/projects/bg0036/

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