Waste recycling in Russia: features, requirements and interesting facts

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Recycling in Russia, like many other things, distinguishes our country from the West. Basically, in Western countries, garbage is sorted according to certain criteria. The Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation does not want to hurry with the transition from waste incineration to its processing.

Department and Federal Agency Proposed Solution

In Russia, waste incineration plants are used locally for waste disposal. According to representatives of the Ministry of Natural Resources, these plants are very energy- and cost-intensive and largely survive on government subsidies. But this ministry still plans to build waste incineration plants in accordance with the adopted concept for the treatment of solid waste until 2030. Rosprirodnadzor considers incineration to be the most optimal form of waste disposal.

Why incineration is not the best solution

To solve the problem of garbage in Russia with the help of incineration is dangerous from an environmental point of view. With the help of incinerators, MSW is turned into smoke, which contains all the carcinogens that are not dispersed throughenvironment when storing garbage in landfills. As a result of the construction of such plants, an increase in the incidence of a number of serious ailments, including cancer, can be observed. But even if the issue under consideration is removed from the area of the most serious diseases, emissions with carcinogens cause allergic reactions - the scourge of diseases in recent years. Burning garbage releases dioxins, which are more dangerous than strychnine and potassium cyanide.

The problem of waste recycling in Russia exists, but it needs to be addressed.

Junk business concept

The recycling business should be based on the establishment of appropriate factories. Like any other business, this business requires the presence of initial capital for renting or buying premises, hiring personnel who will have to work on the appropriate equipment, but this will also need to be purchased.

Besides this, you will have to collect a bunch of different documents allowing this type of activity.

It is also necessary to consider how the garbage will be supplied and how it will be sold. The first is especially important, since there is no culture of garbage collection in our country - on a local scale, it is all stored in one bag without sorting and thrown into a garbage container. According to Rosprirodnadzor specialists, if the state does not encourage manufacturers of recyclable materials to purchase from waste processing plants, such plants have no future.

For waste recycling as a business in Russia, there are positive and negativehand.

The good side of the garbage business

• Trash is limitless.
• A processed product, as world experience shows, should be in demand.
• Such a business is likely to be supported by the local authorities, since recycling is also a headache for them.
• The processing plant can process different raw materials, or maybe some specific one, which makes it easier to decide on starting a business.
• Practically zero competition - as will be shown below, there are practically no waste processing plants in Russia.
• With a reasonable organization of production, these plants can become fully payable and profitable in a couple of years.

Negative aspects of the garbage business

• The main disadvantage is garbage sorting, as mentioned above.
• High costs - the plant may or may not pay off with an illiterate approach, but it will require initial costs, and these costs will not pay off in any case for a number of years.
• A huge pile of documents that an enterprise will have to deal with in this business.
• Finding suppliers and buyers, especially at the beginning of a business, is very difficult.

Trash statistics

Let's give the statistics of waste processing in Russia. Only 4% of the total volume in our country is recycled. In 2017, the volume of solid waste in Russia exceeded 60 billion tons with an annual replenishment of 60 million tons.

All garbage in our country occupies about 4 million hectares, which is comparable to the area of Switzerland or Holland. Every year this area increases by 10%, which is comparable to the total area of the two capitals of Russia.

Currently, there are about 15,000 landfills in the country that have been authorized by the authorities, the number of landfills, according to various sources, ranges from 200 to 1000.

More landfills are illegal. Most of them are in Leningrad, Chelyabinsk, Moscow, Sverdlovsk and a number of other regions.

Waste recycling plants in Russia

Data from Rosprirodnadzor indicates that there are only seven waste incineration plants in our country, which are located in Moscow, Sochi, Murmansk, Vladivostok, and Pyatigorsk. Here, garbage is burned, the resulting ash and slag are pressed and disposed of by burying. Moreover, only 7-10% of the incoming garbage is burned. The cost of burning MSW is higher than the cost of burying it.

According to other sources, there are more than 200 waste processing enterprises in Russia, as well as about 50 waste sorting complexes. Let's take a closer look at some of the list of waste processing plants in Russia.

The Novokuznetsk waste processing plant has been operating in the Kemerovo region since 2008. Waste is sorted here, recyclables are recycled, the remaining garbageburied at a landfill designed for 75 years.

The sorting line of a waste processing plant was opened in the Kursk region in 2013.

In Krasnoyarsk there is a waste sorting plant "Clean City", which processes up to 730,000 tons of solid waste during the year. Recyclables are sent for recycling, the remains of garbage are disposed of at their own landfill.

In 2014, a waste processing plant was launched in Orenburg. It can process toxic substances such as medical waste, mercury. The plant is equipped with a perolysis plant. Processing is possible up to 250,000 tons annually. Sorting is done manually. The remains are buried at the landfill and compacted with a roller.

Several waste incinerators operate in the Moscow region. These include State Unitary Enterprise "Spetszavod No. 2", "Spetszavod No. 3" (this plant has been operating with enviable inconsistency), and the Rudnevo waste incineration plant has been operating since 2003.

Global experience in dealing with garbage

Garbage is currently polluted not only the surface of the Earth, but also the ocean. In 1997, the American oceanographer C. Moore, passing through the North Pacific Spiral, saw that he was surrounded by heaps of garbage far from land. According to him, it took him a week to overcome this pile.

In most countries of the world, garbage is collected not in one container, but in different ones, after being sorted. In Ljubljana in Slovenia, as well as in Russia, they were going to buildwaste incineration plants. Their construction was included in the 2014 project, but the country's leadership changed its mind in time. A special employee goes to the apartments. The need for recycling and the use of recyclable materials is actively promoted among the population.

In closing

Waste recycling in Russia is at the initial stage of its development. Very little waste is recycled. In Russia, the garbage business is not developed. It has its own prospects, but those who are not afraid of paperwork, who have money for initial capital that can be risked should try their hand. The leadership should listen to environmentalists and, instead of building waste incineration plants, pay attention to the world experience in waste processing.