Bulgaria's parliament has halved the bank guarantees that waste recovery organisations must put up. MPs backed the change in a second reading of amendments to the Waste Management Act.
This story follows our earlier report on the vote in the parliamentary committee, which discussed scrapping the product fee on cars.
Packaging organisations had to put up a guarantee of €0.51m (1m leva). It is now €250,000. For organisations that handle used oil, and waste shoes and textiles, the guarantee falls from €255,646 (500,000 leva) to €125,000. Organisations for batteries, accumulators and end-of-life tyres will pay €25,000, down from €51,129 (100,000 leva).
Firms that recover their own waste will give a guarantee of €50,000.
The requirement on population coverage is also lower, at 350,000 residents. Packaging organisations had to cover at least 10 municipalities and 500,000 residents. Those for clothes and shoes had to cover at least 10 towns and 1m residents.
MPs rejected two proposals. One, from Democratic Bulgaria, would have let recovery organisations work with a registration instead of a permit. The other would have kept the original text, under which the product fee on motor vehicles would be scrapped.
The changes take effect on the day they are published in the State Gazette.