Photo: https://musor.moscow/
Within the framework of the Ecology national project the Ministry of Natural Resources has chosen 89 projects for liquidation of dumps in Russia, as the press service of this ministry informed. It is expected that by 2024, 191 landfills will be removed.
Under President’s Control
President of Russia Vladimir Putin said that Russia has managed to do a lot in the sphere of ecology and reclamation of illegal dumps. “A lot has been done in the sphere of ecology. Unauthorized dumps in Tatarstan, Chuvashia, the Stavropol Territory, and in Omsk, Ryazan, Tula and other regions are being rehabilitated. This year 17 such dumps will be removed, and not less than 111 are expected by the end of 2023,” said the President.
At the same time, Putin reminded how this work began. During one of the direct lines citizens stated the acute problem of illegal dumps. The President of the Russian Federation noted that to eliminate it “would be desirable, of course, at even greater pace.”
“Still, work is going on,” Putin said, noting that the most striking example was the landfill in Chelyabinsk, which was the largest within the cities boundaries. “After the reclamation it became an urban space, and in September 2021, sports events were already held in its place, which in general, of course, is pleasing. Again, there are still many challenges here, nevertheless.”
We Take Away one, but two Appear
Despite the intensification of work on identification of illegal dumps, control and supervisory bodies continue to record the emergence of many new unauthorized places of waste disposal in the regions. In two thirds of subjects of the Russian Federation (56 of 85), the number of uncontrolled landfills increased in 2021. A significant increase was recorded in the Tomsk Region (the number of dumpsites increased by 314 in 2021), Perm Region (+180), Kirov Region (+172), Transbaikal Territory (+143), Amur Region (+134), Sverdlovsk Region (+132), Orenburg Region (+131), Khabarovsk Region (+104), Krasnodar Region (+83) and Astrakhan Region (+83).
Bashkortostan (1,822), Chelyabinsk Region (1,038), Buryatia (906), Leningrad Region (833), Transbaikal Territory (813), Orenburg Region (778), Perm Region (671), Astrakhan Region (525), Samara Region (518) and Nizhniy Novgorod Region (495) lead by the absolute number of unauthorized dumps. These 10 regions accounted for more than half of all illegal garbage dumps.
Fight Against Garbage in 2022
Since the beginning of 2022, 48 illegal dumpsites have been eliminated in the Irkutsk Region, with a total area of 35.7 ha, the volume of accumulated waste is 198,400 cubic meters.
Almost 63,000 cubic meters of waste was removed from the territory of Bayandaevsky district, the total area of the landfill was 6.2 ha. In November, the contractor will start liquidation of the dump in Bratsk district, and by the beginning of December the dump with the volume of 8,500 cubic meters will be liquidated. In total, it is planned to liquidate 59 unauthorized dumpsites by the end of the year. The regional budget allocated 121.5 million rubles ($2 mln) for this purpose.
Arkhangelsk Region will receive funds from the federal budget for the elimination of five unauthorized dumps. The work will be carried out by the end of 2025 on three littered areas on the island territories of the regional center, as well as in Nyandoma, said the government of the Arkhangelsk Region.
“The total volume of garbage, which will be removed as a result, is about 800,000 cubic meters,” said deputy chairman of the regional government Evgeny Avtushenko. According to him, after the end of the work almost 80 ha of territory will comply with the norms. The liquidation of dumps will take 956.1 mln rubles ($15.7), 859,1 mln rubles ($14.14) of which will be allocated from the federal budget and 97 mln Rubles ($ 1.6) from the regional one.
Three landfills in the Novosibirsk Region have been eliminated in Bolotninsky, Kochenevsky and Karasuksky districts. Three other unauthorized dumps in Bagansky, Iskitimsky and Karasuksky districts will be completed by the end of the year.
In Nizhnechremoshinsky village council, the actual mass of the taken out waste made about 2,000 tons: 13.95 ha were released from waste. Liquidation of the dump cost 14.664 million rubles ($241,428.1). Joint work with the regional Ministry of Natural Resources made it possible not only to eliminate the unauthorized landfill, but also to begin further use of this land plot for agricultural purposes as part of a major investment project being implemented in the Novosibirsk Region.
The liquidation of the solid municipal waste dump in Sudak (Republic of Crimea) was completed ahead of schedule. The works were carried out from May 2021 to September 2022. The total area of the restored, including reclaimed lands was 10.9 ha, and the total volume of buried waste was 410,077 cubic meters.
“An important object of accumulated environmental harm, located in the resort area of Crimea, was liquidated with a significant advance in time. The work under the contract was scheduled to be completed in December 2022. The environment and quality of life for 16,500 people have been improved,” said Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology Murad Kerimov.
Omsk was allocated 8 billion rubles ($131.71) for the elimination of landfills. “Thanks to the personal involvement of Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko, we received 8.2 billion rubles ($135) in subsidies from the federal budget to reclaim landfills in Omsk's Central, Kirov, Lenin and Soviet districts,” said Omsk Region Governor Alexander Burkov.
According to him, in three years, it is planned to eliminate 11.5 million cubic meters of garbage on these dumps. This will reduce harmful emissions into the atmosphere by 14.5 thousand tons, which is comparable to 9% of emissions from all industrial enterprises in Omsk.
It will be Clean but not Everywhere
The deadlines for the elimination of landfills in 16 Russian regions are disrupted. Such data were announced at the meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko.
Chukotka Autonomous District, Stavropol, Krasnodar and Altai Territory, the Republic of Ingushetia, North Ossetia - Alania, Buryatia, Mordovia, Bashkortostan and the Crimea, as well as Kaluga, Lipetsk, Tomsk, Penza, Arkhangelsk and
Chelyabinsk regions, it follows from the minutes of the meeting.
During the first half of the year 2022, 40 out of 191 municipal landfills included in the Clean Country project were liquidated. Another 48 started to be cleaned up, and 103 projects are still under development. Delays with liquidation of dumps are connected not only with the cost of works, but also with unavailability of design and estimate documentation.
According to the press service of the Ministry of Natural Resources, of 151 dumps to be liquidated by 2024, money allocated to 48, there started the work. 103 more mountains of garbage were left for the next two years. For them the project documentation is still being prepared.
Expert’s Opinion
“Spontaneous dumps are formed due to the lack of infrastructure for the collection, removal and processing of household and industrial waste. Waste dumps are formed near or directly inside large cities and towns or industrial areas.
The population and unscrupulous businesses that want to save money on transportation of waste to places of collection and disposal can dump waste in inappropriate places. Not all landfills are registered by regulatory agencies, so we often cannot fully assess the real scale of the problem.
It should also be taken into account that any economic crisis can aggravate problems in the sector of waste management. Investments into ecology are usually extremely costly and are characterized by low payback period, so many green projects may be put on pause in conditions of conservation of resources,” said Agvan Mikaelyan, member of the board of directors of FinExpertiza, the company, which analyzed the condition of illegal dumps in 2021.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, in its turn, stated that another problem appeared: the level of non-payment by Russians for garbage disposal reached 70% and the situation is critical.
* The Bashkort Public Association is recognized as an extremist organization (banned in Russia by the ruling of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Bashkortostan from 16.09.2020)