Textiles are the record holder in energy saving, we propose that they have the status of raw materials, not waste, said the chairman of the Bulgarian Recycling Association at the Green Transition Forum 4.0
In order to live on a greener planet, there must be more economic incentives for recycling and to create a working economic model. This was stated by the chairman of the Bulgarian Recycling Association, Borislav Malinov, during his participation in the most successful forum for green transformation – “Green Transition Forum 4.0 – New Perspectives for Central and Eastern Europe”, organized for the fourth consecutive year by Dir.bg and 3E News.
The three-day event was held from June 26 to 28 at the Sofia Event Center in the capital.
During the event, over 2,500 participants, including over 750 top managers from 18 different countries, held the key conversation about tomorrow’s world.
Malinov participated in the discussion within the panel “Decarbonization of Industries, Green Supply Chains and the Circular Economy – Challenges and Opportunities” on the first day of the forum, as the moderator of the session was Atanas Georgiev, Dean of the Faculty of Economics at Sofia University, and participants in addition to Malinov – Rosen Karadimov, Minister of Innovation and Growth, Konstantin Bozhinov from Heidelberg Materials Devnya, Angel Zhelyazkov, CEO of Biovet, Elisaveta Valova, Environmental Manager at Dundee Precious Metals, Ivaylo Naydenov, CEO of BFIE, Gergana Stancheva, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Lam’on, and George Kremlis, Ambassador of the European Public Law Organization in Bulgaria and Honorary Director of the European Commission, made a special message to the attendees.
At the beginning of his speech, Malinov noted that the forum was extremely well organized with properly selected speakers and topics.
“The Bulgarian Recycling Association is already celebrating its 20th birthday this year. I have been a member of the association since its founding. I have been its chairman for many years now. I have a fairly broad and in-depth view of recycling and secondary raw materials in Bulgaria, as well as in some other activities, and this allows me to look at things from the inside and outside, because our members are engaged in a variety of activities. We, of course, comment on what is being done and how it is being done,” Malinov noted and presented a presentation, explaining that the share of material resources used from recycled materials in Bulgaria is below the European average.
“What is in red is in Bulgaria. The good news is that we are not in last place, unlike other rankings, but we are not around the European average. In fact, this shows what part of the materials used in production come from recycled raw materials and what part comes from land resources. The average for Europe is 11.5%. We are 4.8, but, of course, we are developing very quickly in this direction,” Malinov pointed out.
According to him, supporting the green transition and reducing carbonization can be achieved through several steps.
“The first is economic incentives for any type of recycling. This can mostly be done in two ways – either reducing profit tax for certain sectors or industries that use more recycled materials up to a certain level, or reducing VAT for materials that are produced from recycled raw materials,” he emphasized and continued:
“The second is expanding the markets for recycled materials. This market expansion is very simple. It is mostly used and there are many practical examples when all manufacturers are obliged to put a certain percentage of recycled materials in their production. This is now a fact for batteries. A regulation has been adopted, which has now entered into force. It is about to be adopted in our legislation.”
According to Malinov, a good example would be if a percentage of rubber chips, or more precisely rubber parts from car tires, which are entirely derived from secondary raw materials, were mandatory added to asphalt.
“As is the case in England, the United States of America and other places. “In fact, this with batteries is a good start, but it can also develop in other areas,” he explained.
And he added the second step for improving recycling processes – the supporting initiatives from the European Commission.
“Unfortunately, the recycling industry here is severely disadvantaged. In the previous programming period, which was for European funds, recycling companies dealing with secondary raw materials were completely excluded, their economic activity codes were not in the program. After a lot of struggle, we managed to include them in the second part of the funding program, but so far I have not heard of any of my colleagues receiving funding for anything related to direct work with secondary raw materials,” Malinov specified.
And he explained that it must be borne in mind that whatever ends up in recycling plants goes through these 500-600 companies in Bulgaria that deal with secondary raw materials.
“If we don’t want more recycled materials to enter the factories, then let’s give them the opportunity to buy new equipment, to do more automation, to train them how to use artificial intelligence in their activities,” Malinov appealed.
“Step by step, a lot can be done so that a larger part of the waste that is thrown into landfills is recycled. A typical example of this is textiles. About 4% of textiles in Bulgaria are thrown into landfills. There is an adopted European strategy for textile waste, which in Bulgaria has not yet developed at all, and this textile waste continues to be thrown into landfills and burned in winter by certain segments of our society,” he added.
According to him, if a regulation for the recovery of textile waste is adopted, the so-called product fees should be introduced to collect them, “which, unfortunately, is not being done.”
“And another supporting initiative from the European Commission, which could be these, stimulate primarily in the recovery plan to stimulate the recycling of waste, and not the extraction of raw materials. The difference is huge,” Malinov added.
And he noted that the record holder in saving energy and carbon emissions, strange as it may seem, is textiles.
A garment made from waste textiles saves 98% of the energy, respectively, and carbon emissions compared to the same garment made from cotton. Because with cotton, many processes are superimposed on its cultivation – picking, dyeing, winding, it goes through many processes, sewing, and so on and so forth. Yes, textiles are actually a record holder in this regard,” emphasized the chairman of the Bulgarian Recycling Association and stated that the next step they recommend is to introduce an end-of-waste criterion at the EU level.
“This is a slightly more specific term. I will explain it to you in one sentence. When a waste goes through its process from its formation, treatment, collection, cleaning, classification into types and delivery to a plant, it is still waste. But there are cases when waste, after entering a secondary raw materials site, can already become a product there, and not when it has entered the furnaces of the plant. This is what is called end-of-waste. This is currently being introduced for brass. He believed that brass waste is not waste. These are raw materials. And now, when we export them mostly abroad, these brass waste, because they are not processed in Bulgaria, are not treated as waste, but as raw materials. “This means final waste. We propose to introduce the same thing for textile waste and tire waste. This is the next easiest thing to do and access to financing for recycling,” said Malinov.
In his opinion, more funding programs should be allocated, especially from European projects in the field of secondary raw materials. “The projects that have been implemented in Bulgaria in the last 5 years and that I know of can be counted on the fingers of one hand,” he added.
And he was categorical that in order to recycle more, a working economic model is needed.
“There is a business to buy and sell and make a commercial profit. With others, there is no such commercial profit. And in this case, the system with product fees has been introduced in order to ensure the recycling of these materials that have no commercial value. But much more can be done here with the introduction of more economic incentives. Yes, give money if you want to live in a greener planet. In general, this is the case, this is what we need to do,” Malinov emphasized.
The last topic he touched on in his speech was recycling at the level of cities and citizens.
“This is mainly the obligation of each of us as citizens to dispose of our waste separately. In all cities there are these bins that are painted in different colors. Let’s throw the waste into the appropriate bin, namely glass, plastic, various types of packaging and metals. And if we really do it, we will support recycling with a very simple action. Don’t be afraid that this waste, after being thrown into the bins, gets mixed up. No. There are enough installations in Bulgaria to process it. The waste in the form in which it was collected in these bins, it really does work,” emphasized Borislav Malinov.