Uzbekistan's waste management system in international practice: participation in a study tour in Bulgaria
Meetings with Bulgarian officials showed that artificially inflated prices in tenders and a lack of transparency in procurement processes lead to serious systemic problems. This was also an important lesson for Uzbekistan.
In November 2025, I participated in a study tour on the Bulgarian waste management system organized by the CEE Bankwatch Network. The trip included visits to the MBT plant, landfills, composting sites, and anaerobic digestion facilities in Sofia and Blagoevgrad.
As part of the program, I presented the current state of the waste management system in Uzbekistan. Including information on waste collection and transportation, the activities of "Toza Hudud", secondary raw material acceptance points and new recycling projects. In particular, special attention was paid to the lack of transparent information on the production, quality and use of RDF fuel.
Meetings with Bulgarian officials have shown that artificially inflated prices in tenders and a lack of transparency in procurement processes lead to serious systemic problems. This is also an important lesson for Uzbekistan.
The trip reaffirmed the difficulty of achieving sustainable environmental development in projects funded by international financial institutions without open data, active media, and civil society participation.
Avazkhon Khaydarov