TKO there: pharmacies are asked not to equate them with grocery stores
Pharmacies are asking to reduce the cost of waste disposal for them: industry organizations have contacted the government, saying that they pay at a rate that is too high for them — the same as grocery stores, which is why they incur significant costs. Grocery stores pay for garbage collection based on the area of the store and take out a very large amount of MSW. But pharmacies have a lot less waste, "apothecaries" noticed. The Russian environmental operator said it was already working on the issue. What are the features of pharmacy garbage and what are the prices for its removal — in the material of Izvestia.
How pharmacies ended up without a separate category
The cost of garbage collection for pharmacy organizations has increased tenfold on average due to changes in legislation in 2020, two industry associations complained to the government. Five years ago, the procedure for determining the standards for the accumulation of municipal solid waste was changed. As a result, pharmacies in the vast majority of regions began to be classified as "industrial goods store," "grocery store," and even "administrative and office establishments."
"The standards established for these categories for calculating prices for the removal of municipal solid waste (MSW), which are set by regional operators, do not correspond to the volume of waste generated by pharmacies and lead to overpayments," says the appeal of the Russian Association of Pharmacy Chains (RAAS) and the Association of Pharmacy Institutions Soyuzfarma (available to Izvestia).
As an industry source explained to the editorial board, pharmacies used to not overpay for garbage collection, as they were handled by operators who took out medical waste.
"But after pharmacies were equated to grocery stores, it was not the amount of waste they sold that began to be taken into account, but the retail space occupied by the pharmacy," an industry source explained to Izvestia. — And the payment that the regional operator assigns, based on the size of the space occupied by the pharmacy, is not always affordable for a retail outlet located in a small settlement.
For example, in the Sverdlovsk region, one of the pharmacies paid about 500 rubles a month for the removal of MSW before the innovations came into force, and after the changes in the procedure, it was already 20 thousand rubles. That is, the cost of such a service has increased 40 times for this pharmacy. For another in the same region, the payment increased from 13 thousand rubles per month to 113 thousand rubles — eight times. Representatives of one of the pharmacies in the Leningrad region told Izvestia about a similar situation, where the price of the service also increased eight times.
Therefore, pharmacy associations have asked the government to provide for them a separate item in the list of categories of consumers of municipal solid waste management services — "pharmaceutical, pharmacy organizations." Currently, there is no such category in this document.
"The absence of the category "pharmaceutical, pharmacy organizations" in the list is a discriminatory factor that puts pharmacies in a vulnerable position compared to other market participants and thereby violates the right to a rational and fair calculation of waste generated and adequate payment for the services of a regional operator," the letter says.
Due to the fact that there is no corresponding category in the list, no measurements, calculations and analysis of MSW standards were carried out in relation to pharmacies, said Alexander Oparin, Executive Director of RAAS.
— And the category of "grocery store", with which pharmacy organizations are mainly associated in the regions, has a significantly larger volume of MSW compared to pharmacies, — he said.
Regional MSW operators choose an interpretation of the pharmacy's status that is beneficial to them — with a higher standard or a method of calculating fees per unit of total rather than retail space, which is unprofitable for pharmacies, another industry organization, the Association of Independent Pharmacies, told Izvestia.
Will there be a separate category for pharmacies
Regional and local authorities can independently determine the categories of consumers when setting standards for the accumulation of municipal solid waste, the press service of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment told Izvestia.
"They (the regional authorities. — Ed.) can add categories if they take measurements independently, calculating accumulation standards for their territory," they explained.
The Russian environmental operator did not respond to the editorial's request at the time of the release of the material, but Izvestia has a response from the REO to the authors of the appeal to the government.
"MSW accumulation standards can be set by the executive bodies of regions or local self—government bodies of settlements or urban areas," the organization said. — Currently, there is no correction factor for the categories of consumers whose activities result in Class A medical waste (non-hazardous medical waste. — Ed.)".
REO is "working on the issue of making changes" to the rules — in terms of supplementing the category of consumers who produce medical waste, the Russian environmental Operator said.
Indeed, in August 2025, a corresponding draft government decree was posted on the federal portal of draft regulatory legal acts for public discussion. It suggests separating pharmaceutical organizations and individual entrepreneurs engaged in pharmaceutical activities into a separate category. It is also planned to allocate therapeutic and preventive medical organizations and hospitals into separate categories.
The Association of Independent Pharmacies said that now in some regions the pharmacy is allocated as a separate facility in the list, in some it is not.
— For example, in Moscow, this is regulated by an order of the Department of Housing and Communal Services of the city, which provides for food and industrial stores, pavilions, tents, kiosks, supermarkets and food markets among the retail facilities, - said the industry organization.
And in the Samara region, according to the association, a pharmacy has been allocated to a separate facility with a standard per square meter of retail space.
Only in 32 regions out of 89, a pharmacy is now allocated to a separate category of MSW treatment facility, the association noted. Its representatives attribute this to the fact that the issue has not been resolved at the federal level.
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