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ACTS announces journalistic investigations of various media because it supports freedom of expression.
Greenpeace Bulgaria and For the Earth gained access to letters, by which the Ministry of the Environment allows TPP “Bobov Dol” to burn up to 500,000 tons of waste for “experimental purposes”. We publish the correspondence because of its great public importance as a subject of human health and the environment, reveals Greenpeace.org.
“This is a small victory against the disturbing practice of institutions to ‘save’ information, which as a general rule must be accessible to citizens. The case is indicative that it often takes several judicial decisions and years of legal battle to citizens can exercise their rights under the law, “said attorney Regina Stoilova.
It took two court rulings and a two-year court battle to reveal the ministry’s letter authorizing the incineration of waste at a coal-fired power plant linked to Hristo Kovachki.
TO the court’s decision It is explicitly written that it is information about the environment, so society must have access to it. However, each time the ministry considered Greenpeace Bulgaria and For the Earth’s request for information, it forwarded it to TPP Bobov Dol, where they refused to reveal the correspondence, arguing that it contained a “trade secret.” Consequently, instead of protecting the public interest, the ministry ruled that it had no right to disclose such information, despite court orders.
The letter, signed by Deputy Minister of the Environment Krassimir Zhivkov, who was arrested earlier this year, contradicts not only Bulgarian but also European legislation, as it exceeds 10,000 times the maximum threshold of 50 tons per year for fuel combustion. alternatives for experimental purposes. Another interesting observation from the correspondence revealed between teak and the ministry is that the institution refused to carry out experimental incineration at the plant for almost two years: the first request was from late 2016 and the first MoEW refusal was from 2017. No However, TPP “Bobov Dol” continues to insist and with the appointment of Neno Dimov as Minister of the Environment, the plant’s efforts are crowned with success: at the end of 2018 the plant will start burning waste.
Greenpeace – Bulgaria and For the Earth have been fighting for years to stop the incineration of waste, but this practice received particularly strong public disapproval in late 2019. In early March 2020, with the help of the international human rights organization ClientEarth, imported conservationists complaint to the European Commission against illegal waste incineration practices in several obsolete coal-fired power plants in Bulgaria.
“Waste incineration exposes those who work in these plants, those who live in the regions and nature to a huge health risk. Emissions from waste incineration can contain heavy metals, dioxins and furans, which are present in waste gases, water or ash, ”says Meglena Antonova from Greenpeace, Bulgaria.
In recent years, waste incineration has been an ingenious way to reduce carbon costs amid the deteriorating economic performance of coal-fired power plants. It seems that tec owners like Bobov Dol intend to exploit obsolete facilities to the last, before surrendering to the advent of new technologies and leaving contaminated soil and water and vast areas for rehabilitation to the public.
The fact that the correspondence was stubbornly kept secret by the plant and the Environment Ministry proves one thing: both parties are aware that they will face violent public disapproval. This was confirmed in late 2019, when many media outlets took up the issue and the vicious practice of waste incineration became widely known. In the end, public pressure forced TPP Bobov Dol to stop burning. The positive trend is that once well informed, society can achieve the change we all need.
Bulgaria
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