Bulgaria's Environment Minister Nona Karadzhova has broken the ground for the construction of a glass recycling plant in the village of Ravno Pole near the capital Sofia.

The Ecopack, a joint stock company that does not distribute its profit formed in 2004 by 18 Bulgarian and foreign firms, is going to invest BGN 3.8 M in the glass recycling facility.

The plant is going to use empty bottles from around Bulgaria; the recycled glass material will be provided to two glass producing plants.

The future factory will have a capacity of 50 000 tonnes of bottles annually. These will come in three ways – from the special containers for recycling around the country, from bottling companies, and from commercial units such as restaurants.

The currently existing system for separation and recycling of household waste in Bulgaria features 22 000 containers in 101 municipalities with more than 3 million people.