Razdelny Sbor

Tatyana Nagorskaya and Anna Garkusha from

Razdelny Sbor

Photo credits: Ecological movement "Razdelny Sbor"
URL: https://vk.com/rsbor

The environmental movement „Razdelny Sbor" (Separate Collecting) is a community of people which is focusing on implementation of waste separation in St Petersburg and other Russian cities. In 2011 the activists in St Petersburg held the first separate waste collection campaign. The purpose of the movement's activity is to stimulate the development of new waste management system in Russia based on 3R principles (reduce, reuse, recycle) and to form conscious, rational attitude to the natural resources. We met Tatyana Nagorskaya, the leader of "Razdelny Sbor" and talked about the organization, problems, hurdles and future prospects in this field.

Anna Garkusha is an environmental and the leader of the "Razdelny Sbor" movement. She explained why is the government not really interested in changes in waste management.

Tatyana Nagorskaya

Activist of "Razdelny Sbor"

"It is not waste management in general: the management of waste generation, how the waste is formed, what to do with it, how to organize everything correctly. It is at a stage when waste is inevitably formed, and it has to be disposed of somewhere, get rid of it, so that our city stays clean"

How the idea of the organization "Razdelny Sbor" was born?

There was no idea in the beginning about the organization. It was not something that happened spontaneously. There was a collect point for waste paper near the charity shop "Spasibo". At some point the guys decided it may be possible to collect some plastic, too. To become a recycler, it is necessary to have a large quantity of waste. There was an idea to arrange a collect action for people who would like to give their garbage for processing.

The first action took place in 2011. It became very popular that we started to take more types of recyclables. As a result, it turned out that we now have a lot of different collect points around the city. At some point we decided not to open new collect points, as we are trying to ensure that people organize separate waste collection by their property management companies.

Actions of "Razdelny Sbor" cannot be a permanent solution for this problem. This is a temporary event with educational purpose that allows people to get involved and to see the opposite side.

What difficulties do you have in organizing of your work and communication with people?

Basically, we don't have any problems in this regard. We didn't have enough money for a long time. The collecting and transport of waste is quite expensive. As we collect recycled materials which are not compressed and in fact we transport air and for a long time we spent all our money on transportation and for our collect actions without getting any salaries. Last year, we won the for the first time a presidential grant for our collect actions and this year we won it the second time. That is, we will have money for organizing such actions for a year ahead. We also live by donations of individuals and of some companies.
At the same time the people wanted to know, why the government don't address the problem of waste separation. They wanted to see how it works in other countries and in Russia, what can be processed and so on. We started to search for answers and tried to deal with this topic at all levels. And so, at the moment we are one of the leading experts on the topic of municipal waste in Russia.
I joined the movement "Razdelny Sbor" in 2012 and wanted to become an entrepreneur in the field of waste management. But I realized this is completely unrealistic as it totally unprofitable.

What is the best solution for Russia now?

At this stage, a large-scale volunteer project is the best, because we cannot become any oligarchs to affect any legislation. But the population's requests show that people are ready, this is needed, it's possible, waste processors are ready, they exist, they have a shortage of recyclables, their capacity is underloaded and such a social movement can demonstrate all these things to the people. And the next step if you become a more or less significant project which legislators listen to. They actually listen to us partially at the moment.

Are you promoting any legislative initiatives to government? Can your organization somehow affect state initiatives?

In more or less degree. Sometimes it does not work, sometimes some offiicials listen to us and try to do something that we advise them. There is a big difference between St.Petersburg and the Leningrad region. In St. Petersburg the situation is terrible but in the Leningrad region everything is the opposite. The officials there listen to us, they are trying to hear what we are saying.

Why it does not work in St Petersburg?

There are other goals in St Petersburg, any other goals, I don´t know. In fact, the level of officials is extremely low. They don't know what a cyclical economy is, they do not know what sustainable development is. They don't know the principle of the three R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle). They don't understand the connection between some things. And that's why now the development of waste management in Russia is on the stage of sanitary cleaning.
It is not waste management in general: the management of waste generation, how the waste is formed, what to do with it, how to organize everything correctly. It is at a stage when waste is inevitably formed, and it has to be disposed of somewhere, get rid of it, so that our city stays clean.
If we start talking about waste, the officials begin to say that our people are well-educated or not well-educated, because they bring their garbage to the waste bin or not. This is a main criterion for them. They do not understand what waste management is. That's the problem.

How many people participate in your actions and what are these people? Why are they doing it?

We have about six thousand regular participants every month. These are responsible people, who paid attention to what waste they produce. Usually these people go further and think over how it possible to produce less waste.
It is about what function waste separation fulfils. You can collect the entire waste and incinerate it or take mixed waste and sort it in the waste sorting plant. But these types of waste management don't allow to change the behavior of the population, so that they consume less and buy recycled packages. If people are involved in waste separation process, they are more carefully to the waste and are more selective in purchasing. All this has a very serious educational function, much more than just recycling it.
In fact, there is no separate waste management in St Petersburg and people have just few opportunities to recycle their waste, for example with our help or with other voluntary organizations.
As we collect different types of waste, we have to bring them to 17 various recycle companies. And it is quite difficult for the people to sort their garbage. So, the people have to deal with this topic intensively.
We are also working with RecycleMap. It is a digital map that shows collect points in the city where you can bring your waste.

In what cities your movement is located and where do you plan to open new spots?

We join cities that want themselves. We don't force anyone.
If the initiative group shares our goals and is ready to act as a single organization, we join other regions. Vladivostok joined to us the last. It really depends on the situation in the region. If there is a different infrastructure or not developed at all, our actions become very helpful.
In St Petersburg our collect actions just have an educational function as the government already know about it. Next step is to force the authorities to create a waste separation system.
This is actually still a problem, they don't want to bother with this issue.
There is no pressure from above, the authorities do not want to do anything extra. There is a huge lobby of incineration at the moment.

What are they, the lobbies?

In Russia there are two huge lobbies - incineration and sorting of mixed wastes. It is said that separate waste collection isn't necessary. There are plenty of myths circulating about this topic. Like one about Europe refusing to separate their waste.
Sorting of mixed waste, as you might know, produces very little recyclable material and it is not prospective. It always ends with the production of fuel. And in fact, it is incineration. One part of the waste is buried in a landfill and other one is burnt. They drop out of the cycle and the cycle doesn't close. So, a cyclical economy cannot develop if there are simultaneously incineration processes and disposal by burial in landfills.
This is the problem, but the lobby for incineration is huge, these are large investment projects that are very profitable for our country. Our country does not like the separate collection of waste, because there cannot be stolen.

Do you hope for changes in the future?

Of course, everything changes. The legislation has been changed radically already in 2014.
There are some things that make it possible to look at the future with optimism. There is a so-called hierarchy of waste management in the federal law. It exists in all developed countries. Sequence of priorities, what needs to be done with waste (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle). Waste prevention. No waste, no problem.
The main task of the government is to provide a foundation for the existence of waste management system. The system has to work on market relationships and to be profitable for all participants. The decision is given to the regions, they decide whether or not to do a waste separation.
But it is necessary to make it obligatory everywhere.

How devastating can the situation become after a few years if there won't be any significant changes?

We will get rid of waste by incineration. This won't be result less waste. People will produce waste more and more.
Growth in prosperity in the world is accompanied by an increase in the amount of waste. If this connection is not broken, then in the end we pollute the environment in one way or another, by incineration and landfills. If we do not work on reprocessing and we only burn garbage, we will lag far behind. It is easier to open a waste incineration plant than to close it. Since this is usually a large investment project, I already told before.

Anna Garkusha

an environmentalist, leader of the "Razdelny Sbor" movement
her comment about the position of the government

I think that we can't oblige people to be engaged in the separate waste collection. We need to encourage them in all ways possible. The government should create conditions under which people will begin to separate their garbage.

Today our society is well prepared to accept the idea that the waste should be collected separately. To be honest, I think they wait for a system allowing them to do it easily to appear.

What is more concerning is the Russian government itself because it doesn't understand why it is necessary to support initiatives for the separate waste collection. That must be done at the regional level and with the help of the different businesses.

On the other hand, I don't think we need a special man in governor's team or a department that would promote the idea of separated waste collection. Of course, it would be wonderful to have a councillor on that problem, but in the end we need is well-working system and that is all.

I am a member of Council of the Committee for City Improvement and Roads of St Petersburg which is directly connected to with garbage collection in the city. But our council was created just for the sake of appearance. We vote only on small causes and can't really take any actions or make solutions.

Anyway, our government thinks about the separate waste collection, but people up there are someone like astronauts — they don't really understand anything of what is happening on Earth. Among them, there is an opinion our people are not ready yet for such changes. But the conversation is still very heat. For the last six months various articles and studies, which say that the people themselves want to collect garbage separately and do it in their local areas, began to publish.

What I think is that the whole problem today is that our politicians don't quite understand how to do it (approx. ed. — to introduce the separate collection of garbage to masses) and shifts the responsibility for the development of separate waste collection to eco-conscious companies. At the same time, there is no systematic understanding of how to help these companies to carry out their duties. Also, there are extremely few eco-educated people in the Russian government. So, in the end, it turns out that some (the government) don't believe in a separate waste collection, and others (eco-activists) do believe, but due to the fact that the legislation is imperfect, cannot implement it.

Over the past two years, we have received moral and financial support from the state for our projects. But still and unfortunately, it doesn't understand why we conduct a public action which is not only focused on garbage collection but also in an ecological education.

On the one hand, it is very good that we have received funding and will be able to hold actions all year. On the other hand, the state does not want to hear from us the proposals that we form due to the fact that we hold actions, educational activities, and our own analysis of the ecological situation. It's like in a family: when a mother buys a toy for her child, but she doesn't see that the child is already a grown up and makes his own decisions.

To be honest I want to add that our Government anyway isn't very bad. It is more or less. We have a fine law on that eco-topic but we don't have people responsible for this law to be kept.

I think that if we woke up tomorrow and found out that there are updates in our law. I mean on the topic of separate waste collecting. It might be implemented in a minimum level into our system in one year and also could cover the whole country in five. Society and system itself must be left with no choice in some sort of way, then they would change their behaviour very fast.

But, of course, we also must care about ecological education. For that we need money and different programs and etc. We don't have lack of people interested in that topic or in helping to promote it to masses, but still we need a lot of other stuff. Of course there will be people who wold say: "I won't do it (ed. note – to separate waste and throw it carefully) because I don't want to do it". Those can't be change in a moment, but all we can do is educate them and help.

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