Bulgaria’s northwestern municipality of Vidin has initiated steps to terminate the waste disposal contract with concessionaire Titan AS amid a garbage crisis of over a week, according to Dobromir Dilov, interim Mayor of Vidin.

Speaking at a sitting of the Vidin Municipal Council, he made clear that a shortage of funding for waste disposal had caused the concessionaire to dump the waste in several places in the city, and not at the designated landfill, thereby forming several micro-landfills.

He informed that the concessionaire had suspended waste collection activities due to financial problems on three occasions over the past month.

The sanctions imposed by the Vidin Municipality and the meetings held with the representatives of Titan AS have not resulted in a solution of the problem and the city is chock-full of garbage, according to reports of news.bg.

Following the provisions of the contract, the Vidin Municipality cannot hire another company or organization to clean up the city or it will have to pay a substantial penalty to the current concessionaire.

The deadline for the concessionaire to clean up the city expires on Thursday evening, after which the Vidin Municipality will look for another company to do the job in order to prevent an outbreak of disease amid the garbage crisis.

The Vidin Municipality also plans to submit a proposal to the Vidin Municipal Council for the establishment of a unit at the Ecology department to start conducting garbage collection and disposal activities with its own funding and rented equipment.