Russia has over 30 million tonnes of waste

There is over 30 million tonnes of domestic waste on the territory of Russia, said Director of the Federal Center for Waste of the Government Building Office Nikolai Abramov in a briefing held May 29.

Abramov said that every year the amount of waste increases by 5%. Every year the average person throws away 300 kilograms of waste. According to Abramov, by 2010 there will be 40 million tonnes of waste.

He said that 98% of waste ends up in special sites and only 2% is transformed using industrial means. Waste sites claim 40 thousand hectares of land and each year the amount of land used for waste storage increases by one thousand hectares. 8% of the sites meet sanitary requirements, said Abramov.

He said that there are a total of four garbage burning factories and three garbage transforming factories in Russia. 'This number of factories is clearly not enough, but the budget does not allot any money for building any new factories,' said Abramov.