MINSK, 14 January (BelTA) – Plans have been made to shut down all the small landfills with solid municipal waste across the country in 2021, BelTA learned from Nikolai Svidinsky, Head of the Biological and Landscape Diversity Office of the Belarusian Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Ministry.
The official said: “We have to decommission all the small landfills in 2021. It has to be done because they occupy considerable territories, represent a source of pollution of adjacent forests and other ecosystems. The key purpose of reclamation is to reintegrate the agricultural lands into the economy.”
As many as 268 waste burial sites were decommissioned in Belarus in 2020. As many as 230 depleted corporate quarries on an area of nearly 205ha were reclaimed. Apart from that, over 23,500ha of idle agricultural land and 71.1ha of land that became available after derelict and vacant buildings and structures were demolished were reintegrated into the economy.
The official also pointed out it is necessary to recycle as many secondary material resources as possible. In his words, the recovery rate of secondary material resources is now close to a quarter of the total volume of solid municipal waste.
