Separate waste collection has been officially introduced in Moscow since January 1. According to our officials, the separation of waste into dry and wet will make a qualitative breakthrough in organizing the collection of recyclable materials for processing. But is it?
In the capital, two types of waste bins are now installed at the container sites of the city - gray and blue. Wet waste, including food debris and hygiene items, should be stored in gray, and dry recyclable materials in blue.
Specifically, the blue bin is asked to throw paper, plastic, glass and metal. If you believe what is written on the containers themselves and on container sites, then you can donate, for example, absolutely any plastic that is not contaminated with food waste. However, the plastic waste produced by Moscow residents consists of several types of polymers, and not all of them are easily recyclable. In order not to overload the residents with "unnecessary" information, it is then proposed to sort the collected recyclables in special places.
What happens at container sites?
The organization and filling of a specific container site depends on the operator of the district's waste disposal and on the operating organization. For example, in the Donskoy District of the Southern District, you can see sites not only with bins for recyclable materials and mixed waste, but also nets for collecting plastic bottles. Also, some wipers neatly stack cardboard and thick paper separately, and some residents prefer to fold their waste paper so that it does not wrinkle or deteriorate in blue bins, where wet waste can also get, because not all residents know or notice that blue bins designed for dry recyclable materials.
The organization and filling of a specific container site depends on the operator of the district's waste disposal and on the operating organization. Photo: Kirill Zykov / AGN Moscow.
It often happens like this: the gate leaves of the site are painted blue and gray, and there should be corresponding containers behind them, but they are either absent, or mixed up, or closed. At the same time, closed containers are not so bad, unnecessary garbage will not be thrown into them once again. But it will be physically difficult for a person who wants to hand over recyclable materials to open it.
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“I still don't understand how the system of separate waste collection works in our area. The blue tank behind the fence is not visible, it is difficult to distinguish it from the rest, no educational work is being carried out in the area. If people who are specially interested in this, perhaps, will still read the letters on the fence and spend time looking for the right container inside the site, then, for example, I don’t do this, since I don’t sort the waste, I don’t understand where and how they leave later. and what can and cannot be put into a blue container,”Natalya Gorbunova, a resident of the Ivanovskoye district of the Eastern District of the capital, told Tsargrad.
The ecological movement "Separate collection" has specific comments on the organization of separate collection in the capital. The head of the Moscow branch of the movement Valeria Korosteleva commented on her position to Constantinople: “The rules for the visual design of the future system of separate collection were obviously formulated by a person who was not familiar with the topic. Repainting containers is much worse for collection efficiency than using new mesh containers. The containers are walled up in pavilions and are not visible. They are without lids, which increases their clogging with common debris. This was confirmed by the sorting station on Vladykino, where the contents of the repainted containers have already begun to be brought with a separate blue garbage truck. Stickers are hard to see, there are mistakes in them, they need to be re-glued frequently due to wear and tear.
Repainting containers is much worse for collection efficiency than using new mesh containers. Photo: Igor Ivanko / AGN Moscow.
As possible solutions, the movement proposes to constantly write appeals to various authorities (the Moscow government, the housing and communal services department), councils, municipal and city deputies, managing organizations and export companies, paying attention to what is happening in a particular area.
The most likely fate of Moscow waste
Many residents of the city do not believe that the waste will actually go for recycling. And they have reasons for this. There are still several garbage collection operators operating in Moscow, and each of them has contracts with companies involved in its disposal. Few of the residents know where and how raw materials are exported for processing. At the same time, everyone knows that mainly metropolitan waste is disposed of in the Moscow region and neighboring regions and is partially destroyed at two incinerators in Rudnevo (Eastern District) and on Podolsky Kursantov Street in the Southern District.
Moscow has just entered the garbage reform, which was launched two years ago at the federal level, so not every district has waste collection operators yet. For the reform to work, each region needs to have a Territorial Waste Management Scheme. Moscow was adopted and published on the eve of the New Year. But, paradoxically, there is nothing new and indicating that the reform on waste management will really begin. Although, to the delight of many, there is no location for storing Moscow waste at the now well-known Shies station in the Arkhangelsk region.
What will they do with the garbage? Distribute to landfills in neighboring regions, some of them are beautifully called technoparks. These are primarily the Kaluga and Vladimir regions. In these regions, according to the Territorial Scheme, 24 million tons of waste will go over ten years. It is reported that in the Kaluga region one million tons will be sorted in 2020, there is no exact information on the Vladimir region. The document speaks in one place about sorting, in the other - exclusively about burial.
Separate collection and preparation of waste for recycling at a waste sorting plant in Moscow. Photo: Sofia Sandurskaya / AGN Moscow.
Part of the garbage will be placed in recycling complexes in the Moscow region. These are also ordinary landfills, but with rooms where you can sort and compost waste. The main purpose of these points is the production of RDF fuel, that is, in fact, beautifully packaged waste for subsequent incineration in cement and other industries.
But most of the waste, according to the document, will continue to be disposed of. This applies to both garbage "sorted" by residents, the processing of which is not planned or is not yet possible, and mixed municipal waste in Moscow.
There are no waste incineration plants in the Moscow region in the scheme yet, since they have not yet been built. In the future, this document will be constantly supplemented and corrected, and they will appear there.
The Territorial Scheme identifies enterprises that process certain types of plastic, metal, glass and paper. But there are no targets for the processing of specific fractions of recyclable materials. Taking into account the recently adopted amendments to the legislation, allowing incineration to be considered a type of recycling, this is what is likely to happen with a potential recyclable material either at the RDF production or at an incineration plant. This assumption is not groundless also because the document does not contain a word about environmental education, about the observance of the hierarchy of waste management, where incineration and landfills, according to the legislation, should be in last place, and nothing is said about monitoring the implementation of a separate collection.
At the same time, some garbage operators may continue to sell some of the most valuable recyclable materials to recyclers. The volume of these materials is small, but it will give them the opportunity to talk about their contribution to a cyclical, that is, a predominantly waste-free economy.
However, this does not mean that there is no separate collection in Moscow. Many residents hand over sorted recyclables on their own at campaigns of environmental movements, using special services and collection points at well-known sites such as the Flacon plant.
According to ecologists, it is very important that the garbage reform really works in Moscow yards, so that residents sorting waste do not have to travel to the other end of the city or wait for shares to save valuable resources for reuse and not for incineration. …
Author: Kopeikina Victoria