Ecopack

June 11, 2019

Five attractive containers for the collection of plastic shaped as giant seashells as of today invite Burgas residents and visitors to collect their plastic waste separately. The art installations, located at the key exits from the Sea Garden in town, symbolically remind us that plastic waste belongs not in the sea or on the beach, but in the special yellow containers of ECOPACK. The original installations are part of the My Green City campaign which Coca-Cola in Bulgaria, jointly with ECOPACK, have been organizing for 12 consecutive years.

The design of the attractive containers was done by Janina Dubarova-Kostadinova, who in the month of May won the My Green City competition for original ideas for plastic waste collection equipment organized jointly with Burgas Municipality and the local branch of the National Academy of Art.

“Preserving the sea and its inhabitants should be a commitment made by each and every one of us. With small efforts, we can all help make our city a more beautiful place and our environment, cleaner. The My Green City campaign is in support of our global commitment to collect and recycle the same amount of bottles or cans that we have sold in the market. We believe this is possible with the support of our consumers, who just like us, are concerned about the future of the planet,” said Jacklin Tzocheva, Public Affairs and Communications Director with Coca-Cola HBC Bulgaria.

“Thank you to our partners from Coca-Cola and ECOPACK for joining in our efforts to make our city an even better place to live. With the My Green City project, through art, we are creating something that carries a message and a commitment to preserve the sea. These attractive containers raise awareness, call to action, and embellish our city,” said Deputy Mayor Ruska Boyadzhieva.

Since the beginning of May, ECOPACK has been implementing a project in hotels, restaurants and cafes in Burgas, which involves daily servicing of 65 sites with the aim of improving separate waste collection rates in the city. “ECOPACK and Burgas Municipality have been in a long-standing partnership in raising awareness of the benefits and encouraging separate collection. It is not by chance that Burgas Municipality won our prestigious Greenest Municipality Award, with which we recognize the desire and efforts of local authorities to implement innovative approaches to raising public awareness in the field of separate waste collection. In the past year alone, in Burgas, 850 tons of packaging waste were collected, of which 150 tons of plastic. Through the joint projects with the Municipality, we hope to double that amount in 2019,” added Todor Bourgoudjiev, Executive Director of ECOPACK.

The art installations are part of this year’s 12th edition of My Green City, within which 10 public transport stops in Sofia were transformed into plastic collection containers.

In the past eleven years of this volunteer initiative, the employees of the Coca-Cola system in Bulgaria and of ECOPACK have engaged in planting, cleaning up, and refurbishment of areas, forests and city parks in 18 regions across the country. Since its launch in 2008, the My Green City project has collected thousands of bags of waste, has refurbished dozens of recreation areas across the country, has planted three forests and adopted two others, which are still in the care of the volunteers.