How Nur-Sultan handles waste management
- Mussa Tanabayev, how waste management goes in Nur-Sultan?
- Waste is managed at the collection site, then it is transported to the city’s landfill where dumping of wastes takes place under the relevant rules.
- How many landfills does Nur-Sultan have at disposal? What about new ones?
- The only landfill is at the Alash road, 6 km away from the city. A new one is not foreseen yet because in Kazakhstan it is banned to dispose plastic, waste paper and glass from January 2019 and a ban on landfilling construction wastes is due to take effect on January 2021. As such, there are no plans for a new landfill.
- How the Kazakh capital addresses the problem of illegal landfills?
- Mayor’s Office and environmental police officials regularly tour the outskirts of the city, where waste dumps may show up. So, Sergek CCTVs are installed to avoid illegal dumping of wastes.
Since the start of 2019, 185 illegal dumps have been eliminated. For comparison, 2018 saw around 100 illegal dumps. Work to identify and remove such dumps is ongoing by officials from the Almaty, Baikonur, Yessil and Saryarka Districts’ Governor’s Offices.
- What is taking up the most space in Nur-Sultan’s landfill?
- Food waste is the most common material found in Nur-Sultan’s landfill, accounting for 28%, followed by polymeric materials – 18.5%, glass – 14.5%, paper and carton – 13%, textile – 9.5%, bones, rubber and leather – 1.4%, wood – 1.5%, ferrous metals – 0.4%, non-ferrous metals – 0.5%, hazardous waste – 0.7% and other waste – 12%.
- How does Mayor’s Office oversee waste collection in courtyards of residential buildings?
- Solid household waste collection is provided by specialized machinery on a double-shift basis (6.00am – 02.00pm, 02.00pm to 06.00pm). Such machinery has GPS to monitor their routes, the Curator app, giving real-time data on loading and unloading solid household waste, as well as on the driver.
Mayor’s Office also coordinates the work of legal entities, collecting, transporting, sorting and recycling solid household wastes, within the limits allowed by the law and its remit.
- Tell us about recovery and recycling of solid household waste?
- Solid household wastes generated in the confines of Nur-Sultan are transported to KazRecycleService, a waste recycling plant, built in 2012 in keeping with the Spanish technology Imabe Iberica, with a capacity of 300 thousand tonnes per year. The plant sorts out, recycles and briquettes collected waste.
- What happens next?
- Plastic recycling ends up in polymer granules and polyethylene flakes, and paper waste recovery results in finished ecowool.
- Tell us how to collect separately household garbage?
- It is important to start small by sorting out household wastes to ensure the homeland and environment are clean. It is also important to know what products can be sorted. Wastes that are recyclable are paper (carton), plastic (PET bottles and bags), glass, metal, home appliances and unrecyclable items include bills, wipes, disposable (paper) cups, parchment, food waste, personal care and others.
Once waste is sorted, it should be placed in the appropriate container nearby a garbage site: yellow for recyclable waste and green for unrecyclable waste.
- How many waste sorting points are there in Nur-Sultan and what about their performance?
- To ease the collection and transportation of waste, the city is divided into 24 areas where 2 815 container sites are established and dotted with 6 276 yellow containers for dry wastes’ separate collection.
The city also has 30 recyclable materials receiving sites (polyethylene, plastic and glass packaging, carton, paper waste, aluminum cans).
It is quite difficult to assess the performance to date because it is about awareness of each person and it is essential to promote it. We believe that the installed waste sorting points will add recycling to people’s daily routines and form the environmental awareness of Nur-Sultan’s citizens.
- Thank you for the interview!
Rabiga Nurbay
