MOBICCCON-PRO Project Deliverable 1.4:
Shortcomings of the existing regulatory framework for the management of construction and demolition waste (CDW) in Bulgaria
Contributors:
University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy (Sofia, Bulgaria)
Economic Policy Institute (Sofia, Bulgaria)
General issues
The requirements of the Waste Management Framework Directive [1] in relation to the CDW have been transposed into the Bulgarian legislation with the Waste Management Act (WMA, 2012) [2]. The Ordinance on the Management of Construction (and Demolition) Waste and Insertion of Recycled Construction Materials was first issued in 2012 [3] on the basis of Art. 43 paragraph 4 of the WMA. The main act in construction sector – Spatial Development Act (SDA) has been amended accordingly.
The biggest positive change compared to the CDW related legislation issued before 2012 was the introduction of a Construction Waste Management Plan (CDWMP) for major construction and demolition works as a part of investment projects. Only a few exceptions of the CDWMP existed.
The “polluter pays” principle was introduced in the CDW management.
There were two specific target groups of gradually increasing requirements:
a) for the material recovery of some CDW (Appendix 6 of [3]) and on the use of recycled materials (Appendix 7 of [3]).
b) for the use of recycled materials, compulsory for the projects financed by public fundings
In December 2017 a new edition of the Ordinance on the Management of Construction (and Demolition) Waste and Insertion of Recycled Construction Materials was published [4]
The Construction and Demolition Waste Management Plan (CDWMP) is not anymore part of the Investment project which means that it is not part of the documents needed for the issuing of a construction permit. The CDWMP should be completed and submitted to the respective municipality only before the actual opening of the construction site or/and before the start of the activities on the set-up of a construction site or the removal of a building/facility. (Art. 156 b of the Spatial Development Act (SDA)). However, under paragraph 7 of the same Article, in case of a request by the investor, the CDWMP and the Plan for Health and Safety Measures could be approved by the Chief Architect of the municipality together with the investment project and to be included in the construction permit.
Shortcomings
1. According to the first scenario described above, even when the CDWMP envisages incorporation of recycled construction materials or/and recovery of CDW in backfilling, this is not included in the respective parts of the Investment project (in which the materials for the execution of the construction works have been already specified). Thus, the types and the quantities of the recycled materials, envisaged in Appendix 5 of the Ordinance on the Management of Construction Waste and Insertion of Recycled Construction Materials [4], turn out to be only for recommendation or/and even create discrepancies with the requirements of the Investment project.
2. There are too many exceptions, in which CDWMP is not required and is not developed, that in practice cover the largest part of the Investment projects in the country. According to the Art. 15. (1) of [4], CDWMP should not be developed in case of: – removal of buildings with a built-up area of less than 300 square meters; – removal of buildings with truss construction; – reconstruction and overhaul of buildings with a floor area of less than 700 square meters; – change of purpose of constructions with a built-up area of less than 700 square meters; – construction of buildings with a built-up area of less than 700 square meters; – construction, reconstruction, major repair and removal of underground and above-ground linear networks in the field of water supply and sewage, electricity supply, heat supply, gas supply, electronic communications, hydromelioration, waste treatment and geoprotection activity with a length of up to 1500 linear meters in urbanized territories; – construction, reconstruction and major repair of underground and above-ground linear networks in the field of water supply and sewerage, electricity supply, heat supply, gas supply, electronic communications, hydromelioration, waste treatment and geoprotection activity with a length of up to 5,000 linear meters outside urbanized territories; – removal of underground and above-ground linear networks in the field of water supply and sewerage, electricity supply, heat supply, gas supply, electronic communications, hydromelioration, waste treatment and geo-protection activity with a length of up to 1000 linear meters outside urbanized territories; – construction, rehabilitation, major repair, reconstruction and removal of roads with a length of up to 500 linear meters; – removal of unusable or safety-threatening constructions, when urgently ordered by a competent authority, with a built-up area of less than 300 square meters; – construction and removal of constructions of the sixth category.
Thus, it leads to a shortage of adequate management of a substantial quantity of the CDW. In this regard, there are several occasions in which CDWMP is not required – in the case of new construction (as the waste quantity is low), in case of the demolition of building (the threshold of 300 sqm is too high) and in those cases related to Infrastructure Investment projects.
Furthermore, with the exceptions existing for road and infrastructure construction projects, it is hard to control to what extent the requirement for the compulsory use of recycled materials for construction works with public financing as per Appendix 8 [4] is met.
3. Certain discrepancies could be observed in Appendices 4, 5 and 6 to [4] in terms of products after their preparing to reuse. These secondary products are treated similarly to the CDW used for backfilling (substituting soil and remaining waste) and not like the recycled materials, which they are in essence, because both recycled materials and secondary products shall be considered as products in terms of Regulation EC 305/2011. This approach is not creating stimuli for the preparing to reuse activities, while such CDW processing is higher in the waste hierarchy [1].
4. A Template Declaration with which the inert CDW is provided for backfilling, foreseen under Article 22 paragraph 4 of [4] has still not been prepared and introduced by the Ministry of Environment and Water. Thus, the large scale backfilling activities performed with CDW are practically not regulated.
5. A Template Declaration with which the Secondary construction products under Article 22 paragraph 4 of [4] was prepared by the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works in 2018. No objections to the Declaration Template, but no approval either has been received and it is still not formally introduced with an Order of the Minister of Environment and Water. This situation hinders the preparing to reuse activities or makes illegal the existing good practices.
6. The use of Secondary construction products needs also to develop criteria for end-of-life phase of the CDW which has to consist at minimum of the following elements:
– To be introduced a system for monitoring, quality and quantity control of the CDW;
– To be introduced specific requirements for the processing activities and the preparations for the Secondary use of a respective groups of products;
– To be introduced criteria for embedding in the construction process of CDW products prepared for Secondary use;
– To be introduced a methodology defining the characteristics of the Secondary products for each area of their application in the construction process;
– To be introduced criteria for conformity assessment;
– To be strictly defined for which areas of application there will be no requirements for testing protocols and/or technical expertise.
7. The CDW recycling facilities are competing with the Landfills for Household Waste (Regional landfills), as the Landfills have permits to execute activities with Code R10, which means they are authorized to execute and report the backfilling with CDW as a recovery operation. Thus, the construction/ demolition companies could avoid to a certain extent the WMA requirements for selective demolition and separate waste collection. Furthermore, when the CDW containing gypsum is not subject to separate collection and is included within the mixed waste, the gupsum contributes for the methanogenesis in the landfills.
8. Many of the CDW landfills operators and/or CDW treatment facilities are in fact doing a disposal of CDW, hidden as a backfilling with permits R10. Actually, there is no control to what extent an inert and pre-treated CDW is used, as required by [4]. In some occasions the Permit R10 is issued even for mixed CDW with a Code 170904, while no further proofing on its inert characteristics is required. This Code is not included in Table 1 of the Appendix 1 of the Ordinance No. 6/27.08.2013 [5], which specifies what kinds of CDW might be considered inert without any further testing, unless it is contaminated. The Ordinance No. 6/27.08.2013 [5] specified namely the conditions and requirements for the construction and operation of landfills and other facilities and installations for the recovery and disposal of waste. Furthermore, the CDW containing gypsum is not subject to separate waste collection but is treated together with the mixed waste leading to soil and water pollution as the gypsum waste is definitely not inert.
9. In general, there is lack of control on the assessment on the contamination of the CDW with hazardous substances. Due to the deficiency of requirements for the execution of a pre-demolition audit, the CDW that could be potentially dangerous are not assessed in a pre-demolition phase with a few exceptions such as some of the asbestos-containing materials. Usually, the contents of the CDW is not known and they could not be precisely classified as hazardous, non-hazardous/inert in order to be further adequately managed – landfilled, recycled or backfilled. The mandatory testing is performed only when there are concerns that CDW does not meet the criteria to be classified as inert and/or is potentially polluted, for example when CDW is generated at construction and demolition sites listed in Appendix 11 of [4].
10. The removal of the transport diary of the CDW, which was initially included in [3] to ensure the traceability of CDW and the absence of control at the entrance of the sites for CDW processing (for example on the weighing notes it is not included the name of the construction site where the CDW is generated) creates prerequisites for unregulated treatment of hazardous CDW.
11. There are no common national criteria which to allow the different Regional Inspectorates of Environment and Water to unify their practices on the issuing of documents for recovery operations with Code R05 (recycling of the mineral fraction). It is a usual practice that this recovery code is also provided for mixed construction waste with Code 170904, although the operator uses only a crushing equipment (possibly some magnetic separation) which means that there is no evidence how the mixed CDW is recycled to construction products of a certain quality, meeting relevant standards conformity requirements. It is more likely that the actual recovery operation is only of Code R12 and the processed CDW are used for backfilling only, but without any control in terms of their level of inertness.
12. In accordance with Article 25 of the Ordinance on the Management of Construction Waste and Insertion of Recycled Construction Materials [4] QUOTE The entities that carry out collection and transportation activities, as well as collection, storage and treatment of CDW, keep records in accordance with the requirements of Ordinance No.1 [6] UNQUOTE. However, there are no texts, referring to the obligations of the entities which are using recycled materials to complete Appendix 29 of Ordinance No.1. [6]. Thus, they are not correct data on the construction companies, using recycled materials and thus contributing to the CDW, because they are not under the scope of Waste Management Act while the entities which are performing activities under Code R10 (utilization through backfilling) are entities within the scope of Article 35 of the Waste Management Act and are obliged to complete Appendix 30 of Ordinance No.1 [6].
13. Construction Waste Management Plan should be approved by the mayor of the respective municipality or by an employee authorized by the mayor. Usually, it is just a formal approval as the respective person do not have the necessary qualifications to deal with construction profile documents and respectively is not in a position of assess the information in Appendices 4 and 5 of the Ordinance on the Management of Construction Waste and Insertion of Recycled Construction Materials. According to Article 11 par. 8 of the Waste Management Act QUOTE– for construction sites situated on the territory of more than one municipality, the plans under par. 1 should be approved by the mayors of the respective municipalities or by authorized employees for the part of the construction site which is performed on the territory of this municipality UNQUOTE could not be performed in practice and thus it is only formally applied – all the mayors approve one and the same Waste Management Plan.
14. There is no effective control on the execution of the CDW Management Plan. According to [4], QUOTE The control on the CDW Management Plan is conducted by the mayor of the municipality on which territory the construction/demolition is performed or by an authorized by the mayor person. For construction works contracted by the mayor of the same municipality the control is conducted by the director of the Regional Inspectorate of Environment and Water responsible for the respective territory UNQOUTE. In practice, the Report on the execution of the CDW Management Plan is submitted to the respective municipality during the handing-over procedure when the building/facility is already completed and is supposed to receive exploitation permit. At this point all actions related to the CDW management have been completed one way or another. The supervisory authority is facing a completed process and prepares the report according to Appendix 6 of [4] only formally, based on available documents. Very often, due to the lack of transparency, CDW delivery notes generated for CDW from one site are used in the reports for CDW management from another site. Furthermore, when the CDW are resulting for demolition activities, even in case the CDWMP is required and it is approved by the municipality, it is possible that no report on its execution is provided as no sanctions for the contractor are envisaged.
References:
[1] Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008 on waste and repealing certain Directives
[2] Waste Management Act, Promulgated, SG No. 53/13.07.2012, amended and supplemented SG No. 11/02.02.2024, effective since 01.07.2024
[3] Ordinance on the Management of Construction Waste and Insertion of Recycled Construction Materials, adopted by a Decree of the Council of Ministers No.277/05.11.2012, Promulgated, SG 89/13.11.2012, withdrawn SG No 98/08.12.2017
[4] Ordinance on the Management of Construction Waste and Insertion of Recycled Construction Materials, adopted by a Decree of the Council of Ministers No.267/05.12.2017, Promulgated, SG No. 98/08.012.2017
[5] Ordinance No. 6 of 27.08.2013 on the conditions and requirements for the construction and operation of landfills and other facilities and installations for the recovery and disposal of waste, promulgated, SG No. 80 of 13.09.2013, amended and supplemented SG No. No. 36 /1.05.2021
[6] Ordinance No. 1 of 4.06.2014 on the procedure and templates for providing information on waste activities, as well as the procedure for keeping public records, amended and supplemented SG No. 33/10.04.2023