MINSK, 26 April (BelTA) – It is necessary to significantly increase the level of usage of solid municipal waste. Prime Minister of Belarus Roman Golovchenko made the statement at a session of the Council of Ministers' Presidium, BelTA has learned.
Roman Golovchenko said: “At the session of the Presidium we are going to discuss more effective management of solid municipal waste and secondary material resources. Those resources that we unfortunately have yet to learn how to use effectively. The government has approved the necessary program documents but in my opinion they don't really take into account the real estate of affairs in this sphere and the level of work being done at the local level.”
In his words, the situation has changed for the better recently. “There are shifts. Indicators in the sphere of management of solid municipal waste and secondary material resources are on the rise. In 2010-2021 the volume of collection of secondary material resources increased by nearly 2.5 times while the utilization of solid municipal waste more than tripled, from 9% to 29%,” the prime minister noted. “At the same time the utilization of solid municipal waste is supposed to reach 64% by 2025. It is doable but it is necessary to precisely balance all the links of the chain starting with waste collection and ending with the return of extractable secondary materials to recycling.”
The head of government stated that since mixed waste represents the bulk of the waste submitted for sorting, the effectiveness of extraction of secondary material resources is low. “It is necessary to start with the collection process. The heads of the oblast administrations and the Minsk city administration should put these things in order, primarily the development of the system for the separate collection of solid municipal waste, including in rural areas. It is blatant mismanagement when different kinds of waste are poured into the same container while we try to choose clean and recyclable materials from this pile. The current practice generates extraneous, unjustified costs at the collection stage,” he said.
Apart from that, Roman Golovchenko noted that the problem of making refuse-derived fuel (RDF fuel) has been unresolved for a long time.
“The matter we are discussing today is extremely important in today's reality. It is a matter of effectiveness, frugality, and cost effectiveness,” the prime minister stressed.
