As much as 25% of the total waste in Russia gets accumulated in Moscow, with up to 4.55 mio tons generated every year, Tetra Pak manager Olga Ivanova said during a roundtable on Extended Producer Responsibility: Waste Management at TASS on Thursday, July 11.
According to Olga Ivanova, Russia presently needs a system of waste segregation with one container used for food scraps, and the other for plastic, metal, and glass.
“This is the first step. Otherwise, installing 5-10 containers for different types of waste right away would be too expensive and also too difficult for users who have never done waste separation before,” the expert noted.
She pointed out that a two-container system will increase the amount of recyclable waste in Moscow and the Moscow Region from 3-5% to 15%, emphasizing that 70% of waste in Moscow can actually be recycled.
“Moscow currently accumulates 25% of the entire country’s waste: 4.55 mio tons of waste is annually generated in the Russian capital, and another 3.83 mio tons in the Moscow Region. St. Petersburg has much less waste than Moscow: 5% of the total,” Olga Ivanova said.