As member of the European Union, Bulgaria has accepted and ratified all European Directives concerning hazardous waste management. This imposes strict requirements and responsibilities on owners and generators of hazardous waste.

On an international scale, the main criterion and instrument in hazardous waste management is the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their disposal. It was signed on 22nd March 1989 in Basel, Switzerland, and ratified by our country with a law passed by the 37th National Assembly on 18th January 1996, in effect as of 16th May 1996.

For the purposes of the Convention “wastes” are substances or objects that are disposed, planned to be disposed or have to be disposed of, in accordance with the national legislation, harmonized with the International Law.

The parties to the convention take into account the risk of causing damage to human health and the environment and water, caused by hazardous and other waste and its transboundary movement.

The parties that have ratified the Basel Convention are convinced that the national governments have to take the necessary measures in order to guarantee the compliance of the management of hazardous wastes, including their transboundary movement, with the protection of human health, the environment and water, regardless of the place of the disposal of wastes.

The national governments (countries) have to monitor the performance of the obligations on the part of manufacturers as regards the shipment and disposal of wastes in an environmentally friendly way, regardless of the place of disposal.

On a national scale, the Waste Management Act, as amended in the State Gazette, issue 53 of 13th July 2012, regulates the control and management of hazardous and production/industrial waste.

The main aspects of the said Act concern:

• Recycling, re-use and/or extraction of by-products and energy from waste, the generation of which cannot be prevented.
• Disposal of waste, the generation of which cannot be prevented, reduced and/or utilized.
• Waste owners submit the waste for collection, removal, shipment, utilization or disposal, to parties that are licensed to perform the respective activities, or utilize and/or dispose of the waste themselves, in accordance with this law;
• The abandoning, unlawful disposal and incineration, or any other form of uncontrolled treatment of waste, are strictly forbidden.

The professional, qualified and competent team of “Da Trans” Ltd., comprising ecologists, economists and logistics specialists, is committed to providing its clients with accurate, cost-effective and completely legal solutions for running the processes of waste management.