We met with former Greenpeace associate Igor Babanin in the suburbs of Komendantsky Prospect in the north of Saint Petersburg. The day was bloody windy, and we had to head to a newly build micro-district of high condos. This is the place where Babanin put one of his "Tochka Sbora" bins for separate waste collection.
Igor Babanin
Director of «Tochka Sbora»
"We are not really succeeding in making waste separation more popular in Russia. Our government doesn't take
any actions, and Saint-Petersburg at that point is like
a black hole."
any actions, and Saint-Petersburg at that point is like
a black hole."
LONELY ECO-WARRIOR
Igor Babanin started "Tochka Sbora" with the idea that one single person can start a change. Now he works alone, but some people sometimes help him.
His license allows Igor to collect papers, plastics, glass, and Tetra Pacs from locals in different parts of Saint-Petersburg. Afterward, he usually delivers their waste to particular companies. For example, glass-waste he sends to the Baltika factory where this glass reprocesses. Same with the paper — Babanin takes it to pulp and paper mill. In general, waste paper can be processed up to six times, and then it is so thin that it can be passed through a sieve.
What is different about Babanin's work is that he tries to do business out of his eco-consciousness. We asked him whether it is profitable to collect and separate garbage for other people. Here's what he has to say:
"We all pay for trash pickup. Today the cost of it in Saint Petersburg is about 600 roubles (about 9 euro) per month for one cubic meter. I need to be paid 200 roubles (about 3,5 euro) over for each cubic meter to do my job.
Take a look. One trash-can volume is 8 cubic meters, which means you have to overpay to me 1600 roubles (about 30 euro) for a full one.
To compare — if you want to send your garbage to waste incineration plant, you have to pay 1000 or even more for each cubic meter of trash. And I'm not even counting the transportation costs to it.
Let's count If you give a tone to that plant, you get 10 000 roubles (about 170 euro). For that money, I'd eat all the mixed trash by myself."
Babanin remembers that he used to work at the company interested in implementing the idea of waste separation into their business. First, they tried to work with Greenpeace, then Babanin started to do their work by himself. In both times, they didn't succeed.
Now Igor does the same job but as a private entrepreneur. He works with hotels, businesses, and some locals living in the different districts of the city. Today Babanin only has five trash bins open for everyone (check the map — ed. note) and aside from them some trash-cans for wastepapers. Igor adds that all those containers were bought by the Knauf because he also provides them with waste for recycling. The German company has a factory near Saint Petersburg.
Not so long ago, he tried to cooperate with local yard men for gathering paper waste:
"The plan was simple: I put a trash-cans for paper in different places around the city, they only had to watch after those cans and collect documents on their streets if they had an opportunity. Then I would cоme to them and buy the collected. But we didn't make it. Paper is really easу to collect and resell as you understand. Also, I allowed them to do that by putting my trash bins.
So my business rivals used the situation. They were coming right before me and paid more to yardmen for them to give the accumulated to their needs."
Babanin says he only has a couple of yard men who still help him, but they are "almost a family" now. He also stopped to hope on someone else. He started to collect garbage for free by giving the initiative to a local community. Igor admits that people are really good at doing that, by the way. They bring waste to his "Tochka Sbora" containers from all houses surrounding it. Huge trash contributes also giving by the users of the Recyclemap program.
Igor remembers the begging of the 2000s was the time when he had to argue with cashiers because he didn't want to take their plastic bags at supermarkets. Now — he smiles — no one says anything when he refuses to take the container today. There are more than 10% of eco-conscious people among Russians, and even though we are still too far from an all green and shiny future, the numbers keep growing.
"We are not really succeeding in making waste separation more popular in Russia. The problem is that our government doesn't really take any action for it. Saint Petersburg, at that point, is like a black hole. We (local eco-activists — ed.note) started to collect and separate garbage on our own, but it eats our head off."
But Igor tends not to only blame the Russian government for not taking action. He also says that there are still lots of people who don't understand why waste separation is significant. For instance, Babanin told us a story about a man who came to the waste separation point that they have in one of the local supermarkets.
"This man came to our container and started to throw down all of his mixed garbage into, then he left the rest on the floor and tried to scuffle with our worker. We had to call the police to stop this rough. But who also knocked me out in that situation was the supermarket's head manager, who chose a side of this guy and told us that we better leave "his" place.
And situations like that are widespread. Usually, it happens in families where one member is more eco-conscious than the other, but the first try to change it. The scariest of all are those careless husbands who were told by their wives to throw the trash separately. They come, throw all their garbage on the ground, and leave."
His license allows Igor to collect papers, plastics, glass, and Tetra Pacs from locals in different parts of Saint-Petersburg. Afterward, he usually delivers their waste to particular companies. For example, glass-waste he sends to the Baltika factory where this glass reprocesses. Same with the paper — Babanin takes it to pulp and paper mill. In general, waste paper can be processed up to six times, and then it is so thin that it can be passed through a sieve.
What is different about Babanin's work is that he tries to do business out of his eco-consciousness. We asked him whether it is profitable to collect and separate garbage for other people. Here's what he has to say:
"We all pay for trash pickup. Today the cost of it in Saint Petersburg is about 600 roubles (about 9 euro) per month for one cubic meter. I need to be paid 200 roubles (about 3,5 euro) over for each cubic meter to do my job.
Take a look. One trash-can volume is 8 cubic meters, which means you have to overpay to me 1600 roubles (about 30 euro) for a full one.
To compare — if you want to send your garbage to waste incineration plant, you have to pay 1000 or even more for each cubic meter of trash. And I'm not even counting the transportation costs to it.
Let's count If you give a tone to that plant, you get 10 000 roubles (about 170 euro). For that money, I'd eat all the mixed trash by myself."
Babanin remembers that he used to work at the company interested in implementing the idea of waste separation into their business. First, they tried to work with Greenpeace, then Babanin started to do their work by himself. In both times, they didn't succeed.
Now Igor does the same job but as a private entrepreneur. He works with hotels, businesses, and some locals living in the different districts of the city. Today Babanin only has five trash bins open for everyone (check the map — ed. note) and aside from them some trash-cans for wastepapers. Igor adds that all those containers were bought by the Knauf because he also provides them with waste for recycling. The German company has a factory near Saint Petersburg.
Not so long ago, he tried to cooperate with local yard men for gathering paper waste:
"The plan was simple: I put a trash-cans for paper in different places around the city, they only had to watch after those cans and collect documents on their streets if they had an opportunity. Then I would cоme to them and buy the collected. But we didn't make it. Paper is really easу to collect and resell as you understand. Also, I allowed them to do that by putting my trash bins.
So my business rivals used the situation. They were coming right before me and paid more to yardmen for them to give the accumulated to their needs."
Babanin says he only has a couple of yard men who still help him, but they are "almost a family" now. He also stopped to hope on someone else. He started to collect garbage for free by giving the initiative to a local community. Igor admits that people are really good at doing that, by the way. They bring waste to his "Tochka Sbora" containers from all houses surrounding it. Huge trash contributes also giving by the users of the Recyclemap program.
Igor remembers the begging of the 2000s was the time when he had to argue with cashiers because he didn't want to take their plastic bags at supermarkets. Now — he smiles — no one says anything when he refuses to take the container today. There are more than 10% of eco-conscious people among Russians, and even though we are still too far from an all green and shiny future, the numbers keep growing.
"We are not really succeeding in making waste separation more popular in Russia. The problem is that our government doesn't really take any action for it. Saint Petersburg, at that point, is like a black hole. We (local eco-activists — ed.note) started to collect and separate garbage on our own, but it eats our head off."
But Igor tends not to only blame the Russian government for not taking action. He also says that there are still lots of people who don't understand why waste separation is significant. For instance, Babanin told us a story about a man who came to the waste separation point that they have in one of the local supermarkets.
"This man came to our container and started to throw down all of his mixed garbage into, then he left the rest on the floor and tried to scuffle with our worker. We had to call the police to stop this rough. But who also knocked me out in that situation was the supermarket's head manager, who chose a side of this guy and told us that we better leave "his" place.
And situations like that are widespread. Usually, it happens in families where one member is more eco-conscious than the other, but the first try to change it. The scariest of all are those careless husbands who were told by their wives to throw the trash separately. They come, throw all their garbage on the ground, and leave."
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Babanin says that we can noticeably change the situation even if we'd put one "normal" trash container. By saying that, he means that those bins shouldn't be just open or have a big hole for throwing down the garbage. He says that 20 centimeters high is more than enough to get rid of separated garbage (ed. note — check the photo of Babanin's trash-can).
But still, the severe actions must be taken by the government. Everything Igor is doing now is like a lonely warrior's fight.
"Now I have three cars and several collection points around the city. I don't have volunteers regularly, but sometimes people come and help me. One woman once bought me a new car because my old one was almost dead. Today I almost paid her back all the money for the car. It also would be great to have a loader, but I have nothing to pay him."
Igor came in eco-business from Greenpeace, where he worked since the '90s. Now from his point organization isn't practically engage in waste separation in the city. Still, they try to fight with waste incineration plants. Even, Babanin says that for all money put into those plants, we could have built a full waste separation system in the country.
"The problem of recyclable materials is the problem of resources taken from nature and then burned although people could bring them back to the recycling cycle if they just start to reprocess the garbage."
We point out to Igor that according to our survey, lots of people do not separate garbage because they think that all this garbage, in the end, goes to the same place. He answered that myths were catching on instantly and told us about the experiment he was part of in the 2006-2009th.
"We made to containers — one for paper and the other for glass, plastic, and metal. They were blue and yellow, but when the truck was coming to pick up the trash, instead of collecting it from container separately, it simply put it into one huge back. It was appreciated by the people, and our collecting points grew fast. Until one day, it became more complicated and expensive to send a car for each container.
That was how one car started to pick up the garbage from two containers at the same time. People saw that and began to suspect us in something that wasn't true. We continued to separate and was doing our job right.
But of course, it wasn't the only reason for this experiment to stop. The containers, to be honest, didn't have an outstanding quality, we felt side pressure from the government and local authorities and etc."
Igor Babanin stopped for a second and then continued that it would be way better to have one person responsible for waste separation in Smolny (ed. note — Saint Petersburg administration). This position would be significant because this someone could actually do something, attract attention to the problem of waste separation in the city, provide control and simple rules for organizations, and so on at least at the sub-federal level.
After all, Igor still believes that the government would one day start care about waste separation, but for him, it would mean the end of his work.
"They wouldn't support me but would help someone of their own to do the same job. For this moment, I hope I'll go to the forest and be happy that I did something in that life."
But still, the severe actions must be taken by the government. Everything Igor is doing now is like a lonely warrior's fight.
"Now I have three cars and several collection points around the city. I don't have volunteers regularly, but sometimes people come and help me. One woman once bought me a new car because my old one was almost dead. Today I almost paid her back all the money for the car. It also would be great to have a loader, but I have nothing to pay him."
Igor came in eco-business from Greenpeace, where he worked since the '90s. Now from his point organization isn't practically engage in waste separation in the city. Still, they try to fight with waste incineration plants. Even, Babanin says that for all money put into those plants, we could have built a full waste separation system in the country.
"The problem of recyclable materials is the problem of resources taken from nature and then burned although people could bring them back to the recycling cycle if they just start to reprocess the garbage."
We point out to Igor that according to our survey, lots of people do not separate garbage because they think that all this garbage, in the end, goes to the same place. He answered that myths were catching on instantly and told us about the experiment he was part of in the 2006-2009th.
"We made to containers — one for paper and the other for glass, plastic, and metal. They were blue and yellow, but when the truck was coming to pick up the trash, instead of collecting it from container separately, it simply put it into one huge back. It was appreciated by the people, and our collecting points grew fast. Until one day, it became more complicated and expensive to send a car for each container.
That was how one car started to pick up the garbage from two containers at the same time. People saw that and began to suspect us in something that wasn't true. We continued to separate and was doing our job right.
But of course, it wasn't the only reason for this experiment to stop. The containers, to be honest, didn't have an outstanding quality, we felt side pressure from the government and local authorities and etc."
Igor Babanin stopped for a second and then continued that it would be way better to have one person responsible for waste separation in Smolny (ed. note — Saint Petersburg administration). This position would be significant because this someone could actually do something, attract attention to the problem of waste separation in the city, provide control and simple rules for organizations, and so on at least at the sub-federal level.
After all, Igor still believes that the government would one day start care about waste separation, but for him, it would mean the end of his work.
"They wouldn't support me but would help someone of their own to do the same job. For this moment, I hope I'll go to the forest and be happy that I did something in that life."
