TCAS: Tacis Cities Award Scheme

Waste management makes better town for life: the TCAS-funded project story of Apatity, Murmansk Oblast, Russia

April 14, 2008

Apatity – is the town located outside the polar circle, at the base of Khibiny Mountains, by the shore of a scenic lake Imandra. The town can be referred to as “science town” with the Kola Scientific Center as its biggest town organization, which incorporates 10 scientific research institutions.

In the sphere of environment protection, the priority area chosen by the town is waste management. At present, a landfill for household and industrial waste, which will correspond to all sanitary and environmental regulations, is under construction.

The project “Apatity – Town for Life”, which was the only one supported by TCAS in Russia, contributed to implementation of the Russian Federation waste management policy, geared towards sustainable development and environment enhancement. The project aimed at decreasing the negative impact of municipal wastes on environment and health of the population of Apatity region.

A municipal program, for scrap removal and consumption residue management was developed based on the best practice and experiences of the neighboring Nordic countries. The Inter-municipal city strategy for waste management was developed by city officials and experts and presented for discussion at the conference “Cooperation for resolution of waste management problem” on 27 September 2007. After further discussions and consequent amendments, this was adopted at the inter-municipal coordination council and became and obligatory document. Already at the first public discussion during the conference it became obvious that it is also a useful tool to launch public debate and stakeholders’ awareness about sustainable development and multiple pressing environmental concerns, as way as means to address them.

The project allowed to considerable speed up the introduction of the first line of landfill for treatment of household and industrial waste. More precisely, the project allowed equipping the landfill with a protection screen, which will prevent the leakage of dumped waste and wastewater to the subsoil water. The existing dump will be removed to the area protected with screen, and the cleared space will be remediated in the near future, thus eliminating the source of waste of subsoil and open water.

A system for plastic waste collection system was developed and put in place due to cooperation between the educational department of the Apatity Administration and recycling enterprises. Under this arrangement, the business has received its profit and the educational system has received an efficient working tool for environmental awareness and education. For a wide involvement of schoolchildren and their parents, the project implemented seminars and competitions and a school conference.

Local media was attracted to all project events and information and articles about the project regularly appeared in local newspapers and new agencies.

The key results of the project are:

• a 2% increase of the total share of processed hard household wastes in the overall volume of municipal wastes;

• a municipal program of waste treatment was developed, discussed and approved by the town government,

• conditions for elimination of the source of wastewater of subsoil ground were created;

• a level of responsibility and awareness of the population on waste management issues was increased.

• a level of awareness of the municipal deputies and administrations of Apatity and neighboring municipalities was increased.

The awareness rising component provided a spill-over effect due to active involvement of schools (teachers, school children, and their parents) and municipalities (primarily neighboring towns of Apatity, Monchegorsk, Kirovsk), followed by an information campaign on selective waste collection for citizens. The information campaign was fed by the results of the research and collection of best practice in waste management and adaptation for the conditions of Russia’s North with contacts of authors of methodic and experts.

The project team, and personally the project manage, Elena Klyuchnikova, did a fabulous job in attainment of project results. The political support to the project was provided throughout the project by the Head of Apatity Town, Mikhail Antropov.

In the course of the project a wide partnership between municipal authorities, scientific and research institutions, civil society organizations and businesses was promoted and advanced for resolution of the existing waste management problems. For example, the project promoted partnerships between research centers (Kola Research center of the Russian academy of sciences, etc.), NGOs (Greenpeace, etc.) were strengthened through the project.

However, the project faced a number of difficulties. Among them was the underfunding of the waste treatment plant and recultivation of landfill by regional authorities (Murmansk Oblast). According to the investment program, 45 mln RUB (over 1 mln EURO) were supposed to be allocated to Apatity for concluding the construction of the waste treatment plant and recultivation of landfill by Murmansk Oblast authorities. However, these obligations were not met and instead, in 2006, Apatity was allocated with 3 mln RUB. A new request from Apatity was filed in 2006 and will be considered by Murmansk Oblast legislative assembly in October 2007. As the likelihood that the full amount would be allocated in 2007 was very small, Apatity substituted part of the underfunding through own budget. Even though this is clearly still not sufficient, the town’s share of co-funding to the project (initially 40 000 EURO) was raised. Due to this underfinancing, the ground works were not completed and the waste fill was not fully recultivated. Therefore, the protective screen purchased through the TCAS grant was stored until the end of 2007 and was not spread. Once the funding comes through for ground works, the protective screen will be spread and used.

In conclusion, it should be noted that the project team works to excel to achieve project results, which will most likely be met. Due to the changed political context, certain corrections to the initial project design were made and were approved by the European Commission and applied by the municipality.

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