I. Metshin to the regional waste operator: “You won the contract and promised to ensure clean dumpsters. Where is the result?"

After numerous complaints about the delayed garbage collection and the poor condition of dumpsters in the villages, which were received during the live broadcast on Instagram account of the Mayor’s Office, the Mayor of Kazan Ilsur Metshin visited several particularly challenging sites to study the situation. He called on the regional operator, which is responsible for waste collection, to strengthen the work and carry out its duties with more responsibility.

The first site of the inspection was the village of Altan in the Privolzhsky district. Here, a garbage heap of household waste, branches, and foliage was formed literally in a day. Two bins for collecting waste were full, plastic bags were lying on the ground. “This year, there is two or three times more solid municipal waste, because last year, due to the pandemic, many people did not participate in clean-up events. Besides, this is May holidays, a lot of people spend time in the country. We take out garbage every day,”- Sergey Bogatov, Director General of the regional operator OOO UK PJKH, told the Mayor of Kazan.

The head of the city noted that the May holidays should not be the reason for the formation of such garbage heaps, waste should be removed in a timely manner. The head of the regional operator assured him that in one or two weeks the situation will improve.

For reference, the new procedure for solid municipal waste management launched in Russia on January 1, 2019. The regional operator, which is responsible for garbage removal from Kazan and the western part of Tatarstan, became OOO UK PJKH. It is responsible for solid municipal waste collection, sorting, extracting hazardous waste and secondary raw materials for further processing, and safe disposal of non-recyclable residues.

Marat Zakirov, head of the Vakhitovsky and Privolzhsky districts, noted that the situation in the villages is under constant control, and bins overflowing with garbage are isolated cases. “The main problem is dense construction, there is only one trash enclosure for a large number of houses. Not every homeowner agrees to have a bunker installed in front of their house,”- he explained.

As an alternative, the Mayor of Kazan proposed to introduce bag waste collection in the village. This practice is already applied at 9 out of the 97 settlements of Kazan. The method is simple – a garbage collector drives through the streets of the private sector and takes waste bags from each house.

Then the head of the city visited the villages of Vishnevka and Privolny. According to Marat Vagizov, chair of the gardening company, 5 thousand houses store garbage here every day. The problem is compounded by the fact that some residents put construction waste into bins intended for household garbage. Ilsur Metshin instructed to install video surveillance cameras to fix violators.

“You won the contract and promised to ensure clean dumpsters, collect money from people. Where is the result?”- he addressed to the head of the regional operator- OOO UK PJKH and requested to improve the situation in all villages as soon as possible. According to the regional operator, the garbage heaps in the village of Altan have already been removed.