A group of fifteen experts and senior officials from the Austrian and Bulgarian Environment Ministries and Executive Agencies, as well as from the Bulgarian Customs Agency visited the cement plant in Beli Izvor on Thursday to see the waste preparation and co-processing facilities and witness the process of co-incineration.
The visit was part of a 2-day seminar held in Sofia concerning co-incineration of waste with special focus on the use of RDF-fraction. The seminar was organized within the framework of the twinning project BG/07/IB/EN/02 on Waste management between the Austrian and Bulgarian Ministries of the Environment, launched on 1 February 2009 and expected to close on 31 July 2010.
The aims of the project are to improve the implementation and enforcement of EU legislation on waste management in Bulgaria, particularly the Waste Framework Directive, Regulation No.6 for the conditions and requirements for construction and operation of co-processing installations and waste co-processing plants, and Regulation 1013/2006/EU for crossborder shipments of waste.
Beli Izvor has three co-processing installations - for used tyres, for animal meal and for solid waste (made up of recyclable plastics, paper, textiles and composite materials). The energy recovered from burning the waste together with traditional fuels is entirely used in the clinker manufacturing process. Co-incineration is strictly controlled and complies with all statutory requirements pertaining to waste valorization and emissions control. Continuous monitoring data show no deviations from applicable emission limits.
Showcase visits are commonplace for Beli Izvor cement plant. The plant ranks among the best in Europe in terms of energy efficiency and technical advancement and attracts considerable stakeholder attention with its state-of-the-art technologies and environmentally sound practices.