CHALLENGES IN SETTING THE MUNICIPAL WASTE FEE TARIFF IN BULGARIAN MUNICIPALITIES.

The present waste fee tariff in Bulgaria is calculated per mill on property value, which is the grounding reason why the business pays much more than the population for the generated waste amounts, thus cross-subsidizing the population costs. Legislative amendments enforced in 2017 require the waste fee to be determined based on waste amounts and a number of waste service users. Since then, the actual enforcement date for the introduction of the new waste tariff has been postponed several times due to a number of serious challenges that may undermine the future operation of the waste management systems in the municipalities. These challenges cover the need for an entire transformation of the current waste collection and transportation system, require significant additional costs in terms of capital investments, necessary massive awareness-raising campaigns, insufficient data, affordability and willingness to pay issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]