Greenpeace demands that Ecotechprom stop construction of Incinerator Plant #4 in Rudnevo and convert what has been built there already into a mechanical biological waste treatment facility.

Burning is the most expensive, environmentally hazardous and dead-end way of treatment of household waste. A stove at an incinerator plant turns 3 tons of relatively safe refuse into 1 ton of toxic waste that should be buried at special polygons. Incinerators emit harmful substances including dioxins, heavy metals and other poisons.

Besides, burning 1 ton of waste at an incinerator costs the city budget 36 US dollars, while full mechanical and biological treatment of these 1,000 kilos of waste will be at least 1.5 times cheaper. Considering that Moscow each year produces some 3.1 million tons of waste, the money saved for the city budget may easily reach tens of millions of US dollars.

5 Greenpeace activists are making demo on possibility of waste separation.

Over 60% of the waste Moscow produces is raw materials that after some recycling may be sold with a profit. Other 30% of the waste is organic and can be used in production of compost needed in taking care of the city’s parks, parkways and gardens.

Since 1996, Ecotechprom, a monopoly in SDW treatment, has several times received instructions requiring introduction of selective collection and sorting of SDW. The new mid-term environmental program of the Moscow City Government also envisages introduction of selective garbage collection.

“It looks like Ecotechprom prefers burning millions of dollars at their incinerators and its top executives together with the Housing, Utilities and City Development Department deliberately deceive the city administration talking about advantages of incinerators”, says Igor Babanin, a Greenpeace Russia spokesperson. “Incinerator stoves burn not only garbage but budget money and the taxes we pay as well. And let us not forget that neither natural resources nor our own health are endless”.

According to Greenpeace, Incinerator #4 in Rudnevo may be reconstructed into an SDW sorting and composting facility. The additional financial resources this would require, will be compensated by lower operational expenses.

Contact details: 257-41-16\18\22, 8901-754-80-81 – Igor Babanin, Alexey Kiselev, Polina Malysheva

Additional Information
The Target Mid-Term Environmental Program of the Moscow City Government for 2003-2005 approved by Governmental Resolution of 25 February 2003 #102-PP, envisages introduction of a selective garbage collection system in Moscow. At the same time, however, Moscow does not have facilities to recycle selectively collected organic waste into compost.

A reconstructed facility will be able to recycle a mixture of waste and later on, after the Moscow selective garbage collection system is put into operation, transfer to recycling of selectively collected waste. If this happens, its capacities may increase 1.5 to 2 times and require almost no upgrading of the existing technological processes. Such a facility will be able to recycle over 80% of the waste it accepts into merchantable goods.

Waste recycling is a key objective humankind faces if it is to prevent a global environmental crisis. Using recycled materials we reduce the load of production and reprocessing of primary natural resources on the environment.

For example, recycling of 1 ton of waste paper saves 17 trees; recycling of 100kg of plastic bottles saves as much energy as an average household consumes every 6 months; and harmful air emissions during recycling of aluminum cans is 20 times lower than that during production of natural aluminum. Besides, developing a recycling industry creates new jobs and not in remote areas where natural resources are produced but in large cities – consumers of material wealth.