Matvienko criticized the work of regional waste operators

Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko said on Tuesday, December 17, that the "garbage reform" turned out to be ineffective, criticizing the current system of regional operators.

"As for the sphere of solid municipal waste management, here great hopes were pinned on the so-called garbage reform. It was assumed that a clear system of waste collection, sorting, processing and utilization would be built throughout the country. However, in reality everything has stalled," she said at a meeting of the Russian Council of Legislators.

The politician criticized the system of regional operators for waste management, created on the initiative of the Ministry of Natural Resources. She pointed to the lack of information about the collected funds, their spending and control over these funds, adding that the responsibilities of regional operators should be clearly spelled out.

Matvienko also noted the inefficiency of the waste management system in Russia, pointing to the inaction of regional operators and the falsification of data on the number of waste processing plants and sorting facilities. She noted that regional operators, receiving hundreds of billions of rubles in revenues, were actually accountable to no one.

The speaker of the Council of the Federation Council added that the involvement of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Patrushev in solving the problem of waste management allowed to achieve greater results in six months than in the previous six years of the "garbage reform".

"On the initiative of the Federation Council, a federal headquarters has been established under the Ministry of Natural Resources. Regional headquarters headed by governors have been set up in each subject. Now we have a complete picture of each region," she stated.

Earlier, on December 12, it was reported that the drivers of garbage trucks may be obliged to take pictures of container sites after they took the waste from it. It was specified that drivers will need to download a special application "Driver of TKO", with which they will send photo materials to the information state system of accounting of solid municipal waste (FGIS UTKO).

Before that, on December 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that 242 objects of accumulated environmental damage had been eliminated in Russia within the framework of the national project "Ecology". This number included 157 large landfills. The territory of the objects was reclaimed, which in turn made the life of more than 20 million people more comfortable and safer, the head of state added.