Recycling approaches. Russian environmental operator will bury garbage at landfills and on fire

The reform of the “garbage” industry, which was supposed to turn it into a technological sector in which waste is perceived as raw material, and priority is given to its processing and recycling, has turned towards an increase in the number of incineration plants and landfills. The draft federal MSW management scheme for the state-owned company Russian Ecological Operator (REO) is focused on the construction of waste disposal and incineration facilities. Experts are convinced that the REO and the Ministry of Natural Resources, instead of building an industry, are forced to focus on meeting the indicators of the Ecology national project already failed in 2019, including through equating the law with the processing of energy burning of municipal waste.

Kommersant analyzed the draft REO draft federal scheme for the treatment of solid waste (it, according to officials, should take into account all the country's “garbage” capacities, waste streams, as well as infrastructure planned for future deployment). Now the document is being discussed with interested officials. The project involves the construction and reconstruction of 868 "garbage" facilities (700 new), including 148 garbage incineration plants with a total capacity of 4.3 million tons per year. The minimum cost of infrastructure is estimated at 101 billion rubles.

Rostec’s plans to build another 25 waste incineration plants have not yet been taken into account in the document - but the scheme will be discussed with business and regions until the fall, and, most likely, they will appear in it.

Also in the plans - the construction and modernization of 351 landfills (253 new) with a capacity of 22.9 million tons (minimum 115.7 billion rubles) and 355 sorting stations (51.9 million tons, 201.8 billion rubles) - all in Russia about 70 million tons of MSW per year are formed, of which 35% are food. 53 stations require composting waste, 24 - the production of RDF fuel (grinding and pressing of useful fractions for the same burning). Processing enterprises, among the new facilities, are no more than ten, mainly these are also composting or RDF production facilities.

In this form, the document clearly contradicts the goals of the waste management reform and the legislation updated at the start of the "garbage" reform - in it the burning and disposal of waste are on the last place in the list of state policy priorities.

The reform itself was launched in order to create a modern MSW management system - to reduce the volume of waste disposal and maximize the involvement of useful fractions in the secondary circulation. Experts interviewed by Kommersant are convinced that the REO project does not create the MSW management industry, but is aimed at formally fulfilling the goals of the Ecology national project - we recall that it turned out to be the worst in execution in 2019 (see Kommersant on February 29), - and according to it, by 2024 36% of all waste in the country should be sent for recycling against less than 10% today. From the proposed scheme, where most of the facilities are called “energy utilization”, it is clear that the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Agency, responsible for the implementation of the national project, use the possibilities of amendments to the basic law adopted in December 2019 that equate energy burning of waste to recycling (see “Ъ” ”Dated December 14, 2019).

Boris Morgunov, director of the HSE Institute of Ecology, recalls that in 2015 the European Commission adopted the EU action plan for a closed economy, in which burning is also given the last place, and such projects do not receive EU support. However, officials of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ministry of Industry and Trade (in the Kommersant’s comments on the draft scheme, the ministry called energy burning “the leading method abroad”) continue to refer to the experience of the EU, especially the energy-deficient countries of Scandinavia. But, as Kommersant has repeatedly written, the energy capacities of already five Rostec waste incinerators are excessive (in principle, there is no shortage of them in the Russian Federation) and unprofitable without state subsidies and tariff surcharges - not to mention the fact that the issue of disposing of their toxic ash has not been resolved. The question of how the load on the market and consumers will increase in the case of building additional burning capacities, what is their place in the energy balance (as well as the place of RDF fuel, which, apparently, should compete with coal), the REO project is not disclosed. Mr. Morgunov believes that in the Russian Federation it is planned to "implement a costly approach, the inefficiency of which is obvious and which the EU abandoned."

“It’s advantageous for the regulator to consider the existing processing facilities as sufficient. Otherwise, you will have to arrange the work so that they are downloaded. It’s easier and more expensive to burn, ”he explains.

Lyubov Melanevskaya from RusPEK (unites, in particular, Coca-Cola HBC, Pepsico Holdings, Procter & Gamble, Tetra Pak) notes: in the REO project, MSW is perceived as “a mixture without identifying useful fractions in it”, and information about the demand for recyclables missing. “Processing plants (they are shown in scheme 260. -“ Kommersant ”) are indicated, but it is not known how many useful fractions are formed as part of MSW, and it is impossible to draw a conclusion about the sufficiency of recycling capacities,” she says. Ms. Melanevskaya explains that the existing facilities are underloaded, but they are lacking in flexible packaging, a number of polymers, and glass. To load the available capacities, it is necessary to organize a separate collection - in the REO scheme there is only a mention of it, but there are no prerequisites for its appearance, she notes.

“The technology for burning waste on the grate is included in the directory of the best available technologies and, in addition, it is recognized by experts as safe. Today it’s the most technologically advanced solution, taking into account the morphological composition of Russian MSW, ”Kommersant told the Ministry of Industry and Trade, in fact confirming that officials did not intend to create a waste processing system that would increase the flow of useful fractions and reduce the flow of waste for burning even in the distant future, although in April 2020, Ipsos polls recorded the readiness of Russian citizens for separate waste collection at 65%.

The deputy chairman of the Business Russia industry committee Natalia Belyaeva notes: “The document does not allow calculating the business model, assessing capacity requirements and making competent decisions about new facilities. Instead of just collecting data from the regions and building an expensive waste sorting station in each subject, we had to figure out how to optimize waste streams so that the capacities were really commensurate with the volume of MSW generation. ” According to her, many existing facilities that are disadvantageous to local officials were not included in the federal scheme (using such landfills, plants, waste sorting stations and other facilities is prohibited). However, the REO scheme was only to consolidate the objects of territorial schemes developed by the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, therefore, questions arise not only from experts, but also from officials from the regions.

After the release of the note on the residual capacity of the landfills in some entities, regional officials told Kommersant that the REO data, “which is unclear why it was created and what it does,” are at variance with reality.

Nevertheless, the draft federal scheme of the Ministry of Natural Resources on May 12 already sent for approval to the concerned departments, although Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko, responsible for the environment, returned the document for revision on April 27, instructing, among other things, to “display on the scheme the capacity for recycling plastic, cardboard, glass, aluminum and other secondary material resources. ” Yesterday, Kommersant in REO reported that they discovered on May 18 another 1284 operating facilities with a capacity of at least 37 million tons, including enterprises for the recycling of paper, plastic, waste equipment, wood and ferrous and non-ferrous metals. But there is still no economic (and environmental) logic in the scheme. It is not known how and in what form it will include facilities created by private companies in the framework of the expanded responsibility of manufacturers for the disposal of goods and packaging, which was also demanded by Ms. Abramchenko.

The large number of new landfills in REO is explained by the fact that "it is more expedient to build new, modern landfills that protect the soil and water from leachate than to use existing ones where there is no such protection." “There are a large number of new sortings in the federal scheme, and the volumes of sorted fractions will be sent to recycling facilities,” they say in REO. The Ministry of Natural Resources, at the request of Kommersant, commented on the comments of REO to comment on the quality of the draft federal scheme.

Source: https://www.kommersant.ru/