Responsibility for cleanliness of waste sites will be transferred to rego-operators

The Russian government is preparing amendments to the law on garbage recycling reform to solve the problem of care and maintenance of container sites. According to a February 18 Izvestia correspondent, under the new rules, regional operators will be responsible for the maintenance of waste sites.

While in Moscow container sites can be called exemplary, as they are equipped with roofs and fences, in the regions the situation is far from ideal. "In most regions, if you come close to the garbage cans, you can't stay long enough to smell receptors, so local residents throw bags of garbage from afar," said journalist Ilya Anikeev.

The government has set a task for municipalities to pay attention to the aesthetic appearance of waste collection sites. It is planned to oblige regional operators, who remove garbage from them, to monitor the arrangement of sites. Now this task lies on local governments, management companies and HOAs.

"This division of responsibility leads in certain cases to irresponsibility in relation to the cleaning of the container site. We will have a single responsible person in the format of a regional operator," explained Denis Butsaev, General Director of the Russian Ecological Operator PPC.

How an ideal site for garbage collection should look like is specified in the recommendations of Rospotrebnadzor. Containers and storage bins should be placed on a solid base with a slope for water drainage. A fence is placed around them so that waste is not carried away by the wind. Roofs should be placed over the tanks to protect them from precipitation and birds, and a convenient access road should be provided. If the site does not meet this description, residents can safely complain to Rospotrebnadzor.

Earlier, on February 10, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Patrushev said that in order to change the sanitary rules for the maintenance of container sites for the collection of solid municipal waste (MSW), it is necessary to come to an agreed position. Following a meeting with the heads of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Rospotrebnadzor, the agencies were instructed to prepare amendments to the draft law on the maintenance of container sites.