February 6 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's external costs associated with air pollution are the highest in the EU, resulting in the loss of more than 2 million working days and more than 11,000 premature deaths per year, the European Commission said on Monday.
Bulgaria has the highest air concentrations of urban fine particulate matter of all 28 EU member states, the Commission said in its EU Environmental Implementation Review 2017 report.
"The three main challenges Bulgaria faces with regard to implementing EU environmental policy and law are: ensuring better protection of human health by enforcing effective solutions to reduce air pollution, providing investments required to ensure the appropriate collection and treatment of urban waste water and ensuring the sound enforcement of nature protection legislation," the Commission added.
It urged Bulgaria to focus on the implementation of the separate waste collection obligation to increase recycling rates and prioritise the separate collection of bio-waste. The aim is to increase composting rates, mobilise investment towards the first steps in the waste hierarchy and avoid building excessive infrastructure for the treatment of residual waste, and, as a matter of priority, address non-compliant landfills and enforce the pay-as-you-throw principle, the Commission stressed.
Bulgaria should also enforce the "pay as you throw" principle which was adopted in 2013 and is part of the Waste Management
Plan, and to ensure that it provides strong incentives to collect separately and recycle waste, and make continuous efforts on illegal landfilling of waste, it also said.
While Bulgarian legislation accurately reflects the environmental requirements agreed at EU level, their implementation on the ground remains a challenge, the Commission noted.
"Construction developments in Natura 2000 areas, poor integration of nature and biodiversity policy into other sectorial policies, weak administration, and a lack of adequate management plans and conservation objectives are some of the main threats to nature and biodiversity in Bulgaria," the Commission also said.
On the positive side, Bulgaria has achieved nearly 100% compliance rate as regards the quality of its drinking water. The country has also adopted a well-structured and coherent waste management plan, used as a model by other member states.