New MSW management system. Six separate collection myths

Each Russian creates on average about 400 kg of waste per year. Accumulating in landfills, these wastes harm the health of people living nearby. From January 1, 2019, the Moscow Region launched a universal separate garbage collection. But many still think that sorting is a bad way out. Experts have denied six common myths.

Sorting trash is pointless. Organics and non-recyclable waste still go to landfill. And part of the processed waste - also, because there are not enough plants for their processing

According to independent ecotrainer Kristina Afanasyeva, in 2019, due to waste sorting in the Moscow Region, more than 1 million tons of waste were not disposed of in landfills. They returned to the secondary circulation, and from them produced new products. “This is about 10% of the total volume that the residents of the region“ generate ”,” Afanasyeva explains. In addition, according to her, sorting complexes are being built and launched in the Moscow Region, in which, in addition to metal, plastic, glass and paper, organics are also processed.

“Our company sends 20% of the total waste for recycling - this is 140 thousand tons per year that do not fall into the landfill,” says Oksana Bachina, spokeswoman for EcoLine, one of the waste management operators in the Moscow region . At the same time, the company manages to extract a maximum of 8% of useful components from the waste that ended up in the "mixed" tanks. The rest is unsuitable for processing due to food debris. The flow of garbage sorted by residents is five times more productive. "And this despite the fact that filling the tanks with recyclables is still not perfect," says Bachina.

In addition, most of the recycling plants are underloaded. “Tire recycling plants are 30% loaded, glass processing no more than 10-15%, and about 500 thousand tons of raw materials do not reach waste paper recycling enterprises annually,” says Svetlana Morozova, environmental speaker at the Separate Collection ", ecotrainer. So there are enough plants for processing at all.

Similar statistics are voiced by the regional operator Management Company (part of RT-Invest, a Rostec company), which also operates in the Moscow Region. At their waste sorting complexes there are also organic processing workshops.

Even if you have sorted paper and glass, you still need to find a place where you can turn them in. And it’s almost impossible to pass batteries or expired drugs!

As Kristina Afanasyeva explains, we now have a dual waste collection system. That is, in our yards there are two tanks: one for recycled materials, the other for mixed garbage. “Each resident can put plastic, paper, glass, metal and tetrapack into one bag and put in a recycling container on a familiar site near the house,” adds Oksana Bachina. Subsequently, they will be separated from each other at the factory. That is, you do not need to look for a place where they will be received, it is important only to separate them from organic waste.

If you live in Moscow and want to turn in unnecessary clothes or household appliances or are just ready to take out glass or paper yourself, there is a Greenpeace card for you - points for receiving all types of waste are indicated here. “Of course, it’s more difficult for residents of small settlements,” said Alexandra Orlova, an eco-activist, a member of the board of the Social Projects Support Fund for Good Deeds, an organizer of separate waste collection in the Pushkin city district. “But I know that now the villagers working in the city where there are containers for clean garbage, take it with you on the way to work. "

The most difficult thing is with medical waste: as Kristina Afanasyeva says, to pass it, you need to pay from 60 to 200 rubles per kilogram. But even if you have nowhere (or very laziness) to do this, you can throw out drugs with minimal harm to the environment. "Grind the tablets into powder, put them in an opaque bag with inedible waste, mix everything and tie a bag," Afanasyeva advises. So you protect animals and people who may find the package and be interested in its contents.

For sorting, you also have to spend natural resources. Recycled materials must be washed (this is the cost of water and electricity), an additional machine (exhaust gases) comes for it, and there are also sorting points and processing plants ... What's the point?

"The extraction and production of new products takes an order of magnitude more resources than the processing of secondary raw materials," says Alexandra Orlova.

Ekaterina Shuvalova, Ph.D. (Chemistry), chemical safety specialist, assistant to the Deputy General Director for Scientific Development, RT-Invest, explains this with examples:

• To get 1 kg of aluminum from waste, you need 97% less energy than to get the same amount of primary aluminum from bauxite.
• To process plastic bottles, 49% of the energy spent on the production of plastic from oil is needed.
• Each ton of recycled glass waste saves up to 1.2 tons of primary natural raw materials.
• Waste materials cost 2–4 times cheaper than primary cellulose fibers, so the delivery of waste paper saves not only trees, but also money. In addition, less water, heat, electricity, and reagents are used in production using waste paper.

Incinerators are worse than landfills. According to a HSE study, up to 70% of the original waste remains during incineration. They are dangerous to health, and they also need to be put somewhere.

According to Ekaterina Shuvalova, it is absolutely impossible to build waste incinerators in their old format. “Today, enterprises are being created for thermal processing into energy. This is a global trend that all developed countries are following,” she explains. “Such enterprises are only being built in Russia." And this does not mean that everything will be burned in a row: such plants will become only the final link (after separate collection, sorting and processing).

Shuvalova also assures that residual waste can be up to 21% of the total revenue, but not 70%. And if the incoming waste was well sorted (that is, there are no non-combustible fractions - metals, glass, sand, etc.), then this percentage can drop to three to ten.

Shuvalova suggests that in the long run even what remains after waste incineration can be neutralized and put into recycling. How harmless are such enterprises? "In Europe, they are being created at a distance of 300-500 meters from residential development," said Shuvalova. "Because their environmental safety has been scientifically proven."

Processing is a business at our expense. Companies earn money on this, and we have to bother with different containers at home, wash and recycle for free, look for where to take it, and even pay for the removal. Despite the fact that tariffs are constantly growing ...

Experts unanimously argue: recycling is not a highly profitable business. "The simplest and most profitable thing in the garbage business is simply to transport the waste from point A to point B and get it on it," says Kristina Afanasyeva.

That is how it has been in Russia for many years, and another system is just being created. "Today, the tariff, at least in the Moscow region, includes funds for the construction of the very infrastructure that will allow us to return to recycling almost half of all the waste we produce," Afanasyeva explains.

As for the financial gain, in some stores when you return the recyclable materials you can get a discount on the product or points. “Since 2020, a resident of individual housing construction attached to a separate waste collection site in the Moscow Region has received a 20% discount,” adds Afanasyeva.

In Kazan, Rostec and RT-Invest are testing a system for collecting plastic and aluminum containers through fandoms in exchange for points. In the first month of work, 20 of these fandomists managed to collect almost two tons of raw materials, which have already received a second life.

Svetlana Morozova adds: local processors do not have to buy raw materials from us, this can also be done in Europe. "Imagine that while we in Russia produce toxic landfills, the factories in any case recycle waste, only from other countries. The question arises: why are we worse?" She says.

In Russia, they do not really process anything. I have not seen a single item made from recyclable materials

You probably just don't pay attention to it. “Most of the coatings on playgrounds and treadmills in the past were tires,” says Svetlana Morozova. “It is possible that the sintepon in your down jacket or the filler in the blanket is recycled plastic bottles. There is also a huge selection of sportswear made from recycled material" .

“Usually, using an item, we don’t even suspect that it is made from recycled materials,” adds Kristina Afanasyeva. But toilet paper, cardboard, building materials and aluminum cans in the “past life” could well be something else. And the well-known cardboard egg substrates are the last stage of paper processing. "There are enough processing plants in Russia," Afanasyeva assures. "But they all lack raw materials and even buy it from other countries." It is in our power to ensure that Russian enterprises recycle our garbage, making it useful out of the harmful.

Source: https://tass.ru/