Moscow’s Failure to Meet Garbage Processing Goals Already Triggering Protests

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov.17 – Six years ago, the Russian government promised that it would increase the processing rather than simple burial of trash from seven percent at that time to 36 percent in 2024 and have 100 percent of trash sorted by 2030. But it has fallen far short of its goals, and NIMBY protests against trash handling are spreading across the Russian Federation.

            Some Russian officials acknowledge that Moscow has made no progress in sorting and processing trash rather than burying it while other claim that the situation has improved slightly (iz.ru/1469278/anastasiia-platonova/seichas-na-pererabotku-idet-lish-7-otkhodov and rg.ru/2024/10/13/zamknut-cikl.html).

            But there is near universal recognition that Moscow has not kept its promises and won’t meet its goals for 2030 and that as a result, the Russian Federation still lags far behind countries like Germany where 84 percent of trash is sorted and processed and South Korea where that figure stands at 86 percent.

            Because of that failure, ever more trash trumps in the Russian Federation are expanding, contaminating air and water used by those who live near them and triggering the kind of NIMBY protests like the one at Shiyes in ever more parts of the country (sibreal.org/a/my-ne-krysy-rossiyane-protiv-gigantskih-musornyh-svalok/33586437.html).

            So far most popular anger has been directed at local officials rather than at Moscow and Vladimir Putin personally, with people appealing to the Kremlin to intervene on their behalf against the regional officials they hold responsible. But as the protests spread and intensify, that could change and thus become a serious challenge for Putin and his regime.