Anti-packet defense – Newspaper Kommersant No. 59 (7504) dated 04/06/2023

The State Duma plans to ban the retail sale of disposable plastic products in the Baikal natural zone. Now more than 67 thousand tons of garbage appear annually in the lake area – mainly household plastic. However, regional officials fear that there will be nothing to replace the bags and bottles. Ecologists, in turn, are worried that an affordable alternative to plastic will not improve the situation much.

On Wednesday, the deputies approved in the first reading a bill banning the retail sale of disposable plastic products in the central and buffer ecological zones of the Baikal natural territory. The document mentions packages, bags, disposable bags made of polymeric materials or with their presence in the composition. The ban also includes dishes, cutlery and “other types of disposable goods made from various types of plastic materials” – their list will be approved separately. The draft also prohibits the “free transfer” of such goods by legal entities and individual entrepreneurs.

The central part of the Baikal natural territory includes Baikal with islands, a water protection zone adjacent to the lake, and several protected areas. It also includes part of the lands of the Irkutsk region and Buryatia. The most severe restrictions apply there – for example, almost all industrial activity and development of untouched areas are prohibited.

Amendments to the Federal Law “On the Protection of Lake Baikal” were introduced by a group of deputies headed by ex-head of the Ministry of Natural Resources Dmitry Kobylkin (ER). The explanatory note states that microplastic pollution of Baikal’s waters “corresponds to a high level” and it is growing every year. One of the sources of plastic and microplastics is “household” plastic waste thrown away by local residents and numerous tourists.

The deputies predict that the pollution of Lake Baikal will only increase due to the increase in the domestic tourist flow and the lack of mechanisms for recycling plastic.

In Buryatia alone, 180 million disposable plastic bags are sold annually, one of the co-authors of the bill, deputy Nikolai Buduev (ER), told Kommersant.

The government supported the initiative. “This will significantly reduce the load on Baikal,” Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko said. “According to expert data, more than 67,000 tons of garbage are generated in the central ecological zone of Baikal annually.” If the law is adopted, the ban will be introduced in the central ecological zone from March 1, 2023 (so in the draft), and in the buffer zone – from March 1, 2024.

However, Greenpeace Russia fears that single-use packaging will be picked up by a “non-environmentally friendly alternative” made of paper or so-called biodegradable and oxo-degradable plastics. Ecologists point out that Russia does not regulate the production of biopolymers and the labeling of products from them: “There are various types of biopolymers on the market now, and each needs different conditions for composting or processing. For this reason, in practice it is impossible to separate them from each other and sort them. Products made from bioplastics, such as potatoes or sugar cane, cannot fully decompose either in nature or in a landfill, says organization expert Dmitry Nesterov, and in the process of incomplete decomposition, they produce methane.

According to Nikolai Buduev, the issue of alternatives was discussed with the authorities of the Irkutsk region and Buryatia: “Shoppers and shopping bags instead of disposable bags, paper packaging and so on.”

Trading networks “did not express concern about the ban,” the deputy assured. The State Duma Committee on Ecology, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection stated that the issue of finding an alternative to plastic will be worked out in detail by the Ministry of Industry and Trade together with the Ministry of Natural Resources. “There were concerns that there would be nothing to replace disposable plastic in everyday life,” Dmitry Kobylkin, head of the committee, confirmed to journalists. “But this is a matter of time and approaches to the problem. We will discuss and work with the subjects.”

Anna Vasilyeva; Vlad Nikiforov, Irkutsk