Putin signed decree on establishing single garbage operator

UFA, 15 January 2019. /Bashinform News Agency, Galina Bakhshieva/ translated by Tatiana Aksyutina/.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree establishing the Russian Ecological Operator company. It will become the single waste operator of the country in the form of a public not-for-profit organisation (PPC), RBC reports.

The functions and powers of the founder of the company will be entrusted to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation. The company will have to form a system for handling municipal solid waste, to prevent the harmful effects of waste on human health and environment, as well as to monitor the waste recycling.

Since 2019, the operator’s activities will be financed from the budget. Until January 1, 2020, authorities should create a unified and regional system for solid waste accounting.

In December last year, Vladimir Putin announced a necessity to build at least 200 waste treatment plants across the country until 2024.

The head of state stressed that the problem of recycling had been ignored in the country, "since Soviet times, garbage was just thrown into the pits". Now, in the light of the development of industry and increasing the amount of waste, this issue is very pressing.

As reported by Bashinform News Agency on January 14, at a briefing session in the Government, the Acting Head of the Republic Radiy Khabirov repeated his demand to reduce the cost of new public utility service - garbage collection.

In his opinion, the payment should not exceed 70 rubles for city residents, and it should not be more than 35 rubles for residents of settlements where the garbage collection system was not organized before.

Bills for the municipal solid waste collection will be issued for Bashkortostan residents since January 25. But at the same time, there are already cases of receiving bills with a new line from management companies.