Institutional aspects of solid waste treatment in Russia

Abstract

Now reduced share of industrial waste in comparison with the 80s is obvious in Russia Simultaneously, share ofmunicipal waste increases. A rather high part of industrial waste is used for recycling, but in the same time recycling for municipal waste is seldom. A few wastes are used for energy production. It concerns both municipal and wooden waste. The only one exception is pulp and paper mills. The most part of municipal waste is disposed in landfills and dumps including illegal ones. Waste treatment plants including incineration ones are only in several big cities (Moscow, St Petersburg, Samara). These plants are based on rather old technologies, as a rule. The main reason of such situation is absence at national and regional levels of a necessary legislation base that stimulates more effective waste treatment in Russia. In particularly, there is no a well-developed policy in renewable energy resources. Too low prices for gas are also prevention for introducing waste in energy production. Administrative decisions without economic measures are the most common method of management. It needs to use methods of project management in this sphere. There is a serious problem of absence of qualified experts. Thus it is necessary educational and training programs that include all topics of solid waste treatment. For this purpose it should be better to cooperate with the EU countries. It will give possibility to use European experience for Russia. Besides it can give possibility to use Russian technological inventions for other countries. It needs to develop a legislative initiative for separate collection of waste. Legislation that should stimulate private business activity in solid waste treatment is necessary also. It is desirably to make correction of Russian rules in waste treatment for more harmonization with rules of the EU. Now the amount and a variety of solid wastes in Russian cities and settlements is promptly growing. In spite of the fact that the amount of industrial waste in comparison with the 80's has considerably decreased, there is an appreciable increase of the amount of municipal waste. It is necessary to mean, that the significant part of industrial waste is exposed to processing, first recycling (metals, pulp-and-paper production, glass, plastics). In the same time recycling for municipal waste is developed rather poor. This situation is caused by several factors: After the beginning of market reforms in Russia the sector of trade in which modem methods of good packing began to develop very fast. It has resulted in the sharp increase of wastes, containing paper, plastic, cardboard, and glass. In the Soviet period circulation of glass packing (bottles, cans) was rather good due to a well-developed enough infrastructure and used methods of economic incentives for circulation (first on the base of a high mortgaging price). Thus the significant part of returned packing intended for a reuse. For example, glass bottles for milk were used on the average 9 - IO times. Measures of incentives for the population for recycling pulp-and-paper production were also developed. Collecting food waste for use as additives in forage to cattle was carried out. However last years big reducing of glass share and growth of plastic packing one happened changes. Packing in aluminum cans has appeared. Meanwhile, however, as a rule, glass receptacle did not be used repeatedly, and its collecting as a base for manufacture of new receptacle economically does not be stimulated. At the same time there is a certain interest to collecting aluminum cans that is connected to rather high prices for an aluminum waste. Unfortunately, because of backwardness of the infrastructure for collecting metal waste in the municipal sector a process of this collecting is sometimes rather criminal. Besides collectors is mostly the poorest part of the population. Simultaneously the amount of home electronic and electric devices ( computers, communication devices, household devices: refrigerators, TVs, radio sets, audio and video recorders and types) increases considerably with improvement of well-being of the population. Stable growth of the number of cars is observed. Revival of the construction industry promotes expansion of the list of used materials. Thus practice of application of rather dangerous materials (asbestos, PVC) is kept unfortunate] y. Food reduces are not allocated in the separate group now at collecting though use of old Soviet principles would allow to collect organic waste products for composting. These are 30-40 percents from all weight of waste, thus it would be possible to receive the ground for use in a garden facilities and in landscape gardening construction Collecting and transportation of solid waste products Russia By the present moment a basic scheme of collecting and transportation of solid waste did not change, except the increase of a number of the non-authorized dumps. City dwellers collect household waste within the limits of their apartments in waste cans, dust from which then is moved to municipal containers, which are located in courtyards. Many houses are equipped with refuse chutes from which solid waste also is got to municipal containers located in special spaces in the ground floor. Special machines come under certain schedules to transport the filled waste containers to special polygons (landfills) or incineration plants. The locations of municipal containers and clearing units of refuse chutes are mostly in unsatisfactory sanitary conditions, being a source of numerous rats and cockroaches. Offices of firms and administrative establishments have contracts with specialized transport agencies for transportation of solid waste. The vehicles belonging to specialized motor-vehicle pools, as a rule, are equipped with hydraulic elevating adaptations to lift municipal containers. However they are not completed with the equipment of dust densification in containers. The collected waste is overloaded to big volume containers in the overload points and then is transported by special transport to places of landfilling or processing. Vehicles of the specialized motor-vehicle pools are worn strongly out, as the majority of them were acquired in 1980th years. Probably, soon they will require repair or even to replacement. The account of transported dust is made according to volume of containers, instead of weight of contents that conducts to overestimate costs of the companies - carriers. Separate collecting of waste in initial stage of collecting remains while only at a level of projects and experiments. Thus, non-selected solid waste is delivered to places of landfilling or processing. Really, partial separating of collected waste is made directly in processing plants. For this purpose a special conveyor is used where workers take off some sorts of waste materials for further recycling.