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There are plenty of recycling bins where I live, often full. However, people just ignore the signs and stuff whatever they feel like into the nearest bin with a bit of space left. It's been a while since I've seen them in operation but the last time I did see the trucks come to empty they they just emptied everything into the one truck - and probably took it to the nearest landfill....

Living on the edge of a forest, I'm used to seeing garbage dumped in gullies and watercourses; I often wonder who goes to all the trouble of driving past so many bins on the way to their chosen fly-tipping location! It's a Balkan Thing, not peculiar to BG.

@JimJ

Our village house is in a lovely spot in the Balkan Mountains (in an excellent village). Our back gate opens to trails, and a pretty valley with a mountain stream flowing down from the mountains. Almost anywhere else, you'd want to turn it into a park, make it part of your village loop ecotrail, or otherwise preserve the scenery. Nope, here in Bulgaria it's the semi-official local dump, and the Mayor has a bulldozer push it all over the edge of the ravine every week. A good 50% is construction material and dead vegetation from clearing gardens... but the other 50% is stuff that could (more easily, I'd guess) be bagged and chucked in the street bins.

I no longer walk on the dump side of the ravine, as it's just not good for my blood pressure. :-)

Signed, Outraged in Shipka. :-)

What a shame! Our village also has an official dump area, but thankfully not in a lovely area, just a field at the end of the street. Building materials (but nothing plastic) and plant waste are allowed there but not old furniture or stuff that should go in the street bin. It seems to be reasonably well adhered to.  The other dumping area which I doubt is official appears to be right across the road from my house, either behind the chitalishte or the kmetsvo. Stuff left there does get removed... eventually.

I'm unsure what to do with the huge amount of junk from my house, broken 60s chipboard furniture, old mattresses, etc. There's a dump that does take this stuff but it's about 40 minutes drive from my place. I don't want to pay someone to take it there and just have it fly tipped instead.

Recycling - there's nothing in the village for this, but there are bins for glass, aluminium, and paper in the nearby small town. No plastic recycling that I've seen. Glass jars all get reused for preserving, of course, and paper is burned.

Unfortunately, Bulgaria still has a fair way to go before it has it's waste recycling similar to Western Europe. But Bulgaria is good at removing it's rubbish on a weekly basis and always on time. For instance, in UK they have:

Black bin with wheels for putting General waste,

Green bin with wheels for putting garden plant rubbish, grass cuttings, and even waste bread.

Red bin with wheels for disposing of plastics including glass bottles,

Beige bin for disposing of card board and paper.

It's a good system and ever householder diligently puts their rubbish in the correct bins. Penalty for not putting rubbish correctly into the correct bin is the council will refuse to empty your bin in the truck on collection day and the 'Bin men' put a Warning note on your bin to ensure you recycle waste responsibly. It's a great system and it works. There a current problem in UK in that unscrupulous people and small private businesses (supposedly in the waste recycling) are taking large amounts of waste typically from house furniture removals to waste car tires into country lanes and dumping everywhere.

@Andrew45

Don't forget the jobsworth mentality at the Council dumps in the UK, where you aren't allowed to circumvent the "one-way system" they operate and things can only be brought in but not taken away. Of course, that doesn't extend to the folks working there, who can help themselves to whatever they think will fetch them a few quid on eBay. Things are much more likely to be repaired or re-/up-cycled here than in your lauded Western Europe, so don't be too quick with the unfavourable comparisons. It's been donkey's years since I've thrown away any electrical appliances here - or electronic components for cars; unless you're using main dealerships for your vehicle servicing almost any module/PCB gets repaired and refused.

And it was just a few years ago that green bins in Lincolnshire were "only" for garden waste.....and glass! Quite what the logic behind THAT was is anyone's guess.