The plastic threat, what about the garbage crisis in Russia?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Life is given to a person once and it must be lived so that your descendants would not be excruciatingly painful for the years you lived. With this thought, a trail of debris appears before our eyes, which stretches behind each of us. This problem is becoming one of the most acute and requires a reasonable approach, when the fight is not with the consequences in the form of heaps of garbage, but with the cause - the system that ensures the increasing production of waste.

In Russia, the garbage crisis has already gone beyond the environmental problem and has become an economic, social, political and cultural factor. Almost all sectors of society are involved in the search for solutions to the problem.

A spontaneous dump in the Ust-Orda Buryat district of the Irkutsk region, photo by Greenpeace / E. Usov

In the Arkhangelsk Region, protests against Moscow garbage are not abating, in Tatarstan and the Moscow Region people are trying to protect themselves from incineration plants, and local battles with existing and new landfills are taking place in every region.

In recent years, it seems that we are close to solving the problem: a lot of waste recyclers have appeared, society began to understand the essence of the term "separate collection" and in many regions different tanks for different types of waste have become commonplace, the state adopted the long-awaited federal law No. 89- Federal Law "On Production and Consumption Waste" and started a global garbage reform.

The law established the correct directions of state policy in waste management, when priority is given to resource conservation and reduction of waste generation. That is, the law created the basis for a smart approach, when we are fighting not with the consequences, but with the causes of the problem.

Unfortunately, the law on "Production and Consumption Waste" was immediately "improved", and the waste reform reached a dead end. Regional operators turned out to be interested in increasing the amount of waste (they earn depending on the volume of transported and disposed waste), and the federal authorities are carried away by projects of waste incineration that are extremely dangerous for the environment, human health and the country's economy.

The best way to solve the problem is to combat the formation of new waste, and here the long-condemned and quite realistic rejection of disposable goods and products comes to the fore. Dozens of countries are moving in this direction. Someone is gradually banning the use of plastic bags, while others are acting more radically and banning several types of disposable products at once.

"One time"? No thanks

How realistic is it to refuse disposable products and products?

We are very accustomed to them and proof of this can be found in any place accessible to vacationers: rusty barbecues, napkins, plastic cups, bottles and bags.

One of the islands of Lake Vuoksa in the Leningrad Region, photo by Greenpeace / E. Usov

This habit is too dangerous. Plastic is dangerous to nature and humans at every stage of the life cycle: extraction of raw materials, oil refining, use, disposal in landfills.

Let's turn to the key findings of the report of the Center for International Environmental Law "Plastic and Health: The Real Cost of Plastic Addiction":

plastic threatens a person at every stage of its life cycle;

a link has been established between the production of plastic and diseases of the nervous system, cancer, especially leukemia, decreased reproductive function and genetic mutations;

when using plastic products, a large number of microplastic particles and hundreds of toxic substances penetrate into the human body;

Until now, many negative consequences for a person have not been sufficiently studied, which prevents consumers from making an informed choice of goods, products, and government bodies cannot make informed management decisions.

About 4 thousand chemicals are associated with the production of plastic packaging, and only a small part of them was investigated sufficiently fully to be included in the list of particularly dangerous 148. With further research, this list will expand, but so far the state of affairs is such that each of us may be faced with mortal danger without even knowing it.

Microplastics in cosmetics, photo by Greenpeace

Let's look at the global practice of handling disposable goods, products:

In 2015, the European Union adopted a directive "On reducing the consumption of lightweight plastic bags".

The Queen of Great Britain has demonstrated a commitment to progressive practices - in February 2018, Buckingham Palace announced that it would prohibit the use of plastic straws and bottles in the royal domain.

Since the beginning of 2019, shops in the European Union have been banned from giving away plastic bags for free.

Since 2021, the European Union has introduced a ban on the use of disposable plastic dishes and bags, cotton swabs, spoons, forks and other disposable products.

In other parts of the world there are also many exemplary examples.

Antigua and Barbuda banned plastic bags in 2016. This was the first such experience in Latin America and the Caribbean. Styrofoam products were banned shortly thereafter.

In 2017, the New Delhi metropolitan area banned plastic bags and cutlery. In a huge win for the environment, India has banned plastic in Delhi. The ban includes bags, cups and cutlery.

In early 2019, several types of disposable plastic products were banned by the Pacific island state of Samoa. The import, manufacture, export, sale and distribution of plastic shopping bags, packaging and straws is prohibited from January 30, 2019.

Georgia has banned packages since April 2019. There are substantial fines for the sale, production or import of plastic bags.

The Council of Ministers of Belarus approved a ban on the use and sale of disposable plastic tableware in catering establishments. The law will come into force on January 1, 2021.

Now let's see what is happening in Russia

As usual, the first radical proposals came from activists and non-governmental organizations many years ago. Gradually, the idea of rejection of the "one-shot" penetrated the power corridors.

In March 2019, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that the issue of banning plastic disposable tableware in Russia could well be resolved at the legislative level.

In April of the same year, the State Duma Committee on Natural Resources proposed to the Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Gordeev to ban the use of plastic bags from 2025.

On January 13, 2020, the head of the State Duma Committee on Ecology and Environmental Protection, Vladimir Burmatov, said that a ban on single-use plastic in Russia is inevitable.

It is difficult to disagree with this, although the ban on disposable products in medicine is not considered at this stage. This is a separate issue and requires a separate discussion.

A significant part of the powers in decision-making remains with the federal authorities, therefore one of the most effective methods is to amend the legislation. For example, The Alliance Against Incineration and Waste Recycling (created by the environmental organizations Separate Collection, Eka, the Russian branch of Greenpeace, Friends of the Baltic, the Resource Conservation Center, the Dront Environmental Center) promotes a Russian public initiative, where it proposes to establish a ban on the circulation of goods, containers and packaging for non-medical purposes, which cannot be recycled or reused.

The St. Petersburg Law Office began working on a legislative initiative to establish a ban on disposable products. At first, Nadezhda Tikhonova, a deputy from Fair Russia, tried to introduce a regional ban, but it turned out to be impossible: “We discussed this topic for a long time at the meetings of the deputy commission. One of the first positive results was the release of methodological recommendations developed together with the city committee for nature management. They relate to reducing the volume of waste generated. If an event is held with the participation of authorities, then reusable items should be used at it, and collection and processing should be organized for the forced disposable ones - when concluding contracts, contracts with recyclable materials are envisaged. By the way, the same rules have been in effect for two years in the Leningrad Region.

We believe it is important to withdraw unrecyclable plastic from circulation, to gradually abandon difficult-to-sort products such as ear sticks. This fall, we will begin to develop an appropriate bill together with our colleagues: deputies and environmental activists.

We have no other way. The world is moving towards this, including our neighbors. In 2021, Belarus will abandon disposable tableware. The Baltic states intend to do the same by 2024”.

It should be said that it was in St. Petersburg that a significant movement towards separate waste collection began - with the Greenpeace project to install bins for separate collection on Vasilievsky Island in the early 2000s. So, if the legislative initiative of Nadezhda Tikhonova turns out to be successful, it will become a continuation and development of a glorious tradition.

Remains of cotton swabs on the shores of the Gulf of Finland in St. Petersburg, photo by Greenpeace / E. Usov

The ban "one-time" has broad popular support in Russia.

Back in 2018, according to a survey by the Levada Center, 47.4% of the country's residents believed that reducing the volume of disposable packaging in stores would help solve the problem of landfills, and 16.6% of respondents had already completely abandoned it. At the same time, 64.7% of respondents put food in plastic bags, about 27.6% - in their own bag, and 5% bought a reusable bag at the checkout. Slightly less than a third of Russians (29%) expressed their readiness to give up plastic if offered convenient alternatives.

In the fall of 2019, Levada Center conducted a survey, which showed that 84% of Russians support the idea of legislative restrictions on single-use plastic.

The petition for a ban on single-use plastic in Russia was supported by more than 140,000 people. They approved the action plan proposed by Greenpeace experts. It lists the main types of disposable waste:

T-shirt bags and packing bags, containers and utensils (food containers, cups, cups, cup lids, cutlery), cotton swabs on a plastic base, wet wipes, straws and stirrers for drinks, plastic balloon sticks, sticks for candy.

Businessmen and their lobbyists in political circles oppose this kind of bans, arguing that it will hit the economy. This is a very dubious statement, given at least only the fact that billions of budget money needed by the economy are spent on combating garbage. In addition, no one demands to establish a ban tomorrow, closing enterprises and distribution points for such goods. The civilized world shows examples when this process goes gradually and successfully, without shocks.

Disposable plastic on the shores of Lake Baikal, photo by Greenpeace / E. Usov

Alternatively, you can introduce a ban on disposable products in especially sensitive natural areas. Starting from Baikal. This symbol of Russia is literally suffocating in plastic waste. A Greenpeace 2019 study shows that 86.6% of the 3,975 debris collected on its shores are plastic. Disposable items account for 87% of all collected plastic.

The introduction of a ban on disposable products in the Central Ecological Zone of Lake Baikal is long overdue

This idea is supported by the local community. For example, the participants of the II-nd Olkhon conference “Olkhon. Together into the future”(February 21, 2017). It presented an initiative agreed by the public and representatives of the administration to implement a program to eliminate the use and sale of single-use plastic packaging on the island. The program was supported by the participants in the discussion.

Disposable plastic on Olkhon Island, photo by Greenpeace / E. Usov

In 2019, the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation (HRC) recommended that the Russian government establish a complete ban on the sale and use of disposable plastic dishes and containers in the Central Ecological Zone of the Baikal Natural Territory. The Council's Recommendation following the results of the offsite meeting in the Irkutsk region from February 25 to 28, 2019 says:

- to establish a complete ban on the sale and use of disposable plastic dishes and containers on the territory of the Central Ecological Zone of the Baikal Natural Territory in order to solve the problem of plastic pollution of Baikal and its coast;

- to provide support for the development and implementation of a regional program to prevent and reduce the annual volume of MSW generation in the Irkutsk region, including a phased reduction in the turnover of non-recoverable and difficult-to-recycle disposable plastic goods, containers and packaging in all territories of the subject where environmental protection measures have been implemented, as well as encouraging the use of reusable (reusable)) goods, containers and packaging among the population and legal entities;

However, not only Baikal suffers from garbage. There are many unique historical and cultural sites in Russia that are also included in the UNESCO World Heritage List and suffer from household waste. It would be correct to ban disposable goods and articles in all of them. And after that, move towards complete rejection throughout the country.