“Packages grow on trees”: the Black Sea coast and the Caucasus are drowning in tons of garbage

Svetlana Radionova, head of the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources, says that the Krasnodar Territory is a constant pain point in this area. According to her, “this is due to many reasons, in particular the tourist flow, which is not taken into account in the territorial scheme.”

The existing landfills in the region can no longer cope with the load. On average, about 2.5 million tons of municipal solid waste is generated annually in the Krasnodar Territory. During the holiday season, this volume increases. And there are simply no new processing capacities in the region.

According to Svetlana Radionova, “The Belorechensk test site is overcrowded, the test site near Novorossiysk has exhausted its capacity. At the limit of its capabilities and the training ground in Temryuk. Today, there are 14 dumps and MSW landfills in the region, which operate within the legal framework. And all of them have almost exhausted their resources.

The construction of new facilities is a big problem. Land in the Krasnodar Territory is worth its weight in gold. It is extremely difficult to allocate a new vast area for garbage collection. After all, it is necessary that this piece of land meets many requirements: firstly, it is necessary that the distance from the landfill to the borders of settlements be at least 1 kilometer.

At the same time, local residents believe that a kilometer is too short a distance. A distance of 3-5 km is required. Finding such a remote area of ​​at least 25-25 hectares in such a densely populated area is not an easy task. In addition, this land plot must have the category of “industrial land”, good transport accessibility and the ability to connect to the power grid.

So far, there are no new landfills, companies involved in garbage collection have big problems with concluding contracts. After all, as the lawyers explain, “if the documentation of the tender for the selection of a regional operator does not indicate the final waste disposal site, to which it is actually possible to take out garbage from the municipalities of the zone, then the results of the competitive selection can be declared null and void in court.”

Accordingly, since the beginning of the year, many municipalities have not been able to conclude agreements with garbage collection operators. This means that local landfills are growing, starting to pose a real threat to the environment. And the appearance of cities from these rotting heaps of garbage suffers pretty much.

Ingushetia does not have such a large number of littering tourists, but in a small region, its own population is under half a million. Accordingly, the building density is very high. And there is only one landfill for the entire region – in the village of Nesterovskoye. In addition, the waste disposal operator clearly does not cope with its tasks. Until 2019, this was done by the Ecosystem structure, which regularly received fines for poor performance, and then completely lost the status of a regional operator through the court. Now they are trying to fix the system. In 2024, a new landfill is scheduled to open in the republic, moreover, over the past year, Ingushetia has become a leader in the processing of municipal solid waste.

There is a lot of land in Kalmykia, but also garbage. This is due to the general low standard of living in the region and poor manageability. Yes, and local residents are especially fooling themselves with where to throw waste. Spontaneous dumps are created here and there. But the biggest problem for the inhabitants of the region is the lack of clean drinking water. A yellow technical liquid flows from the taps, which simply cannot be taken into the mouth. It is reported that in this region only 7.5% of the population is provided with high-quality water from centralized water supply systems (against the Russian average of 87.4%). And it is still completely unclear how to solve this problem.

However, if we evaluate not by the number of filled landfills and clogged garbage bins, but by the actual amount of litter on city streets, on the coast and along highways, then Dagestan will, of course, be the leader. This is recognized even by the Dagestanis themselves. There are many reasons for this, the main of which are economic chaos and the mentality of the inhabitants.

At the beginning of this year, the capital of Dagestan, Makhachkala, experienced a garbage collapse. Waste was not taken out, yards and streets were littered with garbage, on which rats climbed. And the reason for this was the ambitions of the regional operator UK “Leader”, which refused to take out the garbage, referring to the fact that the existing tariffs do not cover the cost of its transportation and disposal.

The case ended with the institution of criminal cases against the management of the company, and at the same time the former Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology Nabiyuly Karachaev, who made Leader a regional operator. The new minister, Rahman Hamidov, has already announced that the search for a new territory for authorized landfills has begun.

Now there are only two official polygons in the republic. All the rest are unauthorized, but simply dumps under every bush. The minister explained this situation this way: “You see, in the 90s, people had other problems. They fought terrorism, they fought poverty. Nobody thought where to throw garbage. sea… This issue cannot be resolved quickly.”

By the way, the issue that has not been resolved in the republic for 30 years is the construction of a waste processing plant. Member of the National Assembly Mejid Magomedov, the initiator of the investment project “Construction of a plant for deep disposal of solid waste with a capacity of 200,000 tons in Makhachkala,” complained to local journalists that the former head of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the republic personally interfered with the plant construction project. “In order to avoid dirt, we need to build a plant, we need to support this undertaking, or at least not interfere. They support us in words, but in fact they interfere specifically. The Minister of Natural Resources stands up at a meeting with the president and says: “Don’t give priority to this project,” Magomedov said.

But this does not explain another phenomenon in Dagestan: garbage is lying around everywhere – along the roads, on the slopes of the mountains, on the coast, even dirty plastic bags hang on the trees. “We have become a republic where packages “grow” on trees,” local residents complain. And here many are already advising Dagestanis to pay attention to themselves.

During the all-republican discussion arranged in the media, acting. Magomed Musaev, head of the Khadzhalmakhi village, said: “Because we ourselves are so dirty. We don’t want to take responsibility. Everyone has cleanliness in the house, and what is behind the fence is of no interest to anyone. In our village, the population is about 11 thousand people, geographical features also contribute … No one allocates special equipment, no finances, there are no own funds to combat this problem.

Deputy director for scientific work of the FGU: “The Dagestansky State Nature Reserve Gadzhibek Dzhamirzoev expressed the following opinion: “It seems that the people are taking revenge in this way, people are doing it out of spite to those in power. After all, everyone tries to maintain cleanliness in their home.

“When I come to Maha, everyone in the house, in the apartment is clean and tidy. It is worth opening the door to an open space – there is a picture right there: gobies, seeds, candy wrappers, syringes, etc. Question? And what: everything beyond the threshold of the house is a common trash bin ???”, “I was at home in May. Feelings: this is not my native and beloved city. Everything is littered and spat on,” residents are already writing in social networks. What to do with these “traditions” is not yet very clear. Supporters of tough measures propose mercilessly fining the inhabitants of those streets and yards where the main decoration is a garbage heap.