Two major international companies have joined efforts to get a workable recycling program up and running in Russia.
Eager to help Moscow authorities make a new policy regarding trash separation, Tetrapak and Volkswagen have partnered to keep garbage out of landfills by creating mobile waste collection points throughout Moscow and St. Petersburg.
“Our aim is to address to the local authorities of various levels, starting with the municipalities or the Moscow administration,” Aleksandr Barsukov, vice president of Tetrapak, told RT. “With the view of showing them the possibilities of how businesses can influence the situation, what might be prepositions from businesses, what are our achievements, and our complete, ready proposals that could be reproduced on a larger scale.”
Waste separation initiatives have been tried and failed multiple times in Russian cities.
Environmentalist Anton Kuznetsov, a consultant on the project, has spearheaded the grassroots effort of waste separation since the 1990s. It has been tough going to say the least.
“Technically, we lack collection centers near people’s homes for their convenience,” Kuznetsov, from the Sphere Ecology, told RT. “If they are easily accessible and affordable, more and more people will join this process. We improve the quality of waste, which we later send for recycling to get recoverable resources meant for secondary use.”
Secondary raw materials are a vital part of a new economy for companies like Tetrpak.
It is a cradle to grave concept in a country where waste takes up 2,000 square kilometers of the national territory.
Ilya Starbovsky, bringing in the Volkswagen side of the arrangement, says he is well aware that business initiatives like this are in their infancy here in Russia.
“We do feel ourselves a bit like white crowns when we do something ecological, because Russians got used to being treated in a very unpleasant way with lots of mud and snow and lots of trash outside of the window,” Starbrovsky told RT.
“But still we want to bring a sparkle to every eye. I really believe that we are on the right way while doing these kinds of things in Russia, although of course we do not expect a great feedback from these kind of initiatives, but still we need to make the first step in this direction.”
That first step includes intercepting city dwellers where they are most plentiful – where the streets and the subway converge.
For a city that produces at least five and a half tons of waste annually, it will take a lot more than grass roots initiatives to change things. The hope is that with the big boys stepping in, changes can be made to stick.