Innovating in the Bulgarian agriculture sector. 

Despite the changes to the Bulgarian economic model in the last decades, agriculture still plays an important role in the country’s activities. The country has seen smaller properties give place to larger and more productive ones, and even though the relative contribution of the sector to the country’s GDP has decreased, there is a larger business environment covering the food value chain which has produced significant results. A next step for this industry is to achieve new degrees of competitiveness, both to boost the value added to the domestic production and to even the country’s condition to the rest of the EU. Investing in green technologies, products and services is a way to achieve this since it improves efficiency in the use of resources as well as reduces the impacts on the environment and human health.

The main purpose of this EEA Grants-funded project is to increase the competitiveness of Kaskada – a Bulgarian business that offers a wide range of solutions in the world of plastics.

This will be done by purchasing and installing new production technology in Kaskada, so they can begin mass production of fully recycled irrigation pipes. The final product will be the irrigation drip tape, a device with various applications in agriculture in which 80% of the normally used prime grade High-density polyethylene (HDPE) will be replaced by a recycled polymer compound. The material for this innovative mixture will be collected from irrigation pipes and other HDPE waste from tubes, barrels, and canisters. As a result of implementing the project the following outputs will be generated:

• Extending existing recycling process of used irrigation pipes and introducing the new irrigation drip tape extrusion line;
• Improving material efficiency by using an innovative material for production of polymer irrigation pipes that is a result of 80% recycled materials;
• Increasing the reuse of recycled materials by reorganizing the production and operational processes in Kaskada in the context of circular economy.

The project will also contribute for larger, more strategic outcomes such as:

• Increased competitiveness of the project partner and their business area;
• Enhanced business cooperation between Bulgaria and Norway;
• Reduction of economic disparities in the European Economic Area;
• Increase value creation and sustainable growth in the Bulgarian business sector