RUSSIAN - GERMAN RAW MATERIAL FORUM: HOW TO CONVENT ECONOMY AND ECOLOGY IN ONE CAR

At the end of December, it will be exactly one year since the start of a large-scale “garbage reform” in Russia. The government broadcast that it would try to prevent an excessive jump in tariffs. But to do this failed. According to Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Gordeyev, the growth in the cost of utility services for the collection and disposal of garbage ranged from 10 to 50%, depending on the region. Who will pay for waste management in the future - packaging manufacturers, products or consumers? And also, what is the real prospect of a transition to a closed-loop economy in our country?

The new system, built in Russia and aimed at increasing the level of processing and the gradual elimination of landfills, is largely borrowed from German experience. Therefore, at the XII Russian-German Raw Materials Conference, organized annually by the Mining University, recycling became one of the key topics. The forum was attended by officials responsible for the development of the industry in both countries, as well as representatives of the scientific and educational community and business.

While other Western countries, on average, 28% of municipal garbage are disposed of in landfills, 27% are burnt and disposed of 44%, Germans only landfill 1%, and the share of processing reaches 64%. This makes them leaders in Europe in waste management. Over the past thirty years, the number of landfills in the country has decreased from 50,000 to 300. And by 2022, Germany completely expects to convert absolutely all the garbage into compost, energy, various products and materials.

“Our country spends 80 billion euros on this sector of the economy, moreover, 15% of the employed population work in it. This is about the same as employed in the automotive industry. However, the situation with garbage is not the same as in the manufacture of machinery or baking bread. People are willing to spend money on groceries. But in terms of waste, things are different. Here the state should intervene and determine who should pay. In our experience, the one who caused the occurrence of garbage should bear all the costs for the environmentally friendly disposal of these wastes, ”said the head of the Department of General, Fundamental and International Issues of Closed Waste Management of the Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety Germany Andreas Yaron.

And here the most interesting part begins - it is difficult to find a more ambiguous formula than "the one who produces the waste must pay."

In Russia, at the first stage of the “garbage” reform, the government shifted the entire financial burden to citizens. According to the new rules, payment for the removal and recycling of household waste began to be calculated on the basis of the number of residents registered in the apartment, and not the number of square meters, as it was before. In addition, in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation they had to choose regional operators who were entitled to independently determine tariffs. This led to an increase in payments on utility bills and public discontent. Correction of plans was required.

“The construction of a modern waste management industry cannot be done based solely on the tariff of the population for services for the collection and removal of garbage. Active involvement in the business process is needed. Therefore, the priority is the formation of the concept of extended producer responsibility. To begin with, it is necessary to legislate the concept of secondary resources - until it appears, the closed-loop economy in the waste management industry will remain at the level of conversation. We will have to go through the painful stage of establishing sound disposal standards and environmental tax rates. These parameters will determine the size of payments by companies for the pollution that they will produce. This will entail the creation of recycling facilities and the introduction of separate collection for at least two containers - dry and organic waste. However, it is not yet decided who will pay the eco-collection - the manufacturer of the goods or packaging, ”said Konstantin Rumyantsev, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation.

The Germans decided to take a similar step back in 1991, when they launched the Green Point program, which established the responsibility of manufacturers for processing products. This is a pictogram of arrows, which means that the manufacturer paid taxes for the disposal of the product after its consumption. The greater the damage to nature caused by packaging, the higher the contribution. This program was subsequently adopted throughout the European Union and led to a reduction in the use of paper, glass and metal in production.

According to the former German Federal Minister Klaus Töpfer, the possibility of recycling should be taken into account when manufacturing products, and the cost of processing waste should be included in its price. Thus, the size of the company's profit will depend on the decisions of its management, while, ultimately, the consumer always carries the financial burden.

“We are building the industry from scratch and have just begun to understand that waste is a valuable resource, and its use in secondary circulation allows us to develop the economy, gain new markets and preserve nature. Having fallen into the conditions of total distrust of citizens in power, we have difficult discussions regarding the construction of processing complexes and incinerators, although the experience of Western countries shows that they successfully work in the right technological chain within the city limits. Today, 100 factories operate in the same Germany, 5 are built in Russia, and China erects 300 immediately. There are few alternatives - either consider incineration as waste and turn waste into energy, or bury it and create more and more landfills and landfills, ”said the deputy Prime Minister Alexei Gordeev.

In 2011, Yuri Trutnev, who was then the head of the Ministry of Natural Resources, said that, despite the advantages of burning garbage and other methods of disposal, which consist in obtaining energy and useful substances, it is more economical to build landfills. The feasibility of such an approach to the problem was explained by the "territorial capabilities" of Russia.

At the moment, the landfill area in our country exceeds 4 million hectares, that is, about three times more than Montenegro, and four than Cyprus. According to experts, if the process is not fundamentally modernized, the annual growth under the current scenario will amount to 0.4 million hectares, and by 2026 the area of waste accumulation will be 8 million hectares, and the prospect of building incineration and processing enterprises will no longer seem so ridiculous to the authorities .

According to Leonid Vaysberg, Chairman of the Board of Directors of NPK Mekhanobr-tekhnika, enterprises of this profile are not at all new to our country. The first waste recycling plant in Europe was built precisely in St. Petersburg in the 1970s. It is located in the area of Pulkovo Airport and was built according to mechanical and biological technology, where garbage was disposed of in an aerobic manner in 48 hours. For two days, what happens to him on the training ground would take decades. In the 1990s, a second plant was built that works on the same technology, but both of them together can neutralize no more than 20% of all that the city produces.

“There are such key points in the development of civilization when old, well-known and well-developed things become relevant again in a new round of society. Today we have come to a new terminology, speaking of a closed-loop economy, but even more than 60 years ago everyone knew about the integrated use of raw materials when they collected scrap metal, waste paper and glass containers. Therefore, to say that the industry is being built from scratch will not be entirely true. There are no technological and scientific problems in this area in Russia, all the material has been accumulated - all that is needed is political will, which can ensure the construction of safe plants and awareness-raising among citizens regarding the civilized collection, recycling and disposal of garbage, ”said Leonid Vaysberg.

For the full development of recycling, incineration cannot replace all waste management options. To receive recycled materials, it is also necessary to introduce recycling into the system, which means separate collection of garbage. In Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, this idea took root among the population, it took about 20-25 years. In Spain, France, Italy - the society is still in the process of getting used to. How long will it take us?

Source: https://forpost-sz.ru/