Turning waste into income: seven new waste processing enterprises to be introduced in Belarus

Do you know how much waste is per Belarusian? The number is definitely surprising: almost half a ton of garbage we throw out every year. More than 5 million tons of municipal solid waste are generated nationwide. To cope with such volumes, a whole system has been built in the republic. How does it work and where is it still stalling, what is being done for recycling in our country? This was discussed in the program “At the Control of the President”, released on November 12 on the air of the TV channel “Belarus 1”.

The most important instructions of the President are not only to reduce the impact on the environment, but also to get the maximum benefit, turning waste into income. The country continues to build capacities: for the current five-year period, it is necessary to commission seven new waste processing enterprises to the ten that are already operating.

The regional complex for solid municipal waste management near Novopolotsk is only about a year old. Large-scale industrial facility, 27 hectares of forest. Contrary to expectations, in the air we can barely detect the characteristic smell, and around - purity and exemplary order. I can't tell you how waste is sorted here. The guide is only a string of loaded garbage trucks, which from morning to evening enter one after another. This facility covers the needs of five districts and territories of Vitebsk region at once. Here they extract the maximum benefit from what can be recycled, everything that cannot be extracted keeps the way to the local landfill. According to the director of UE "Biomekhzavod household resourcing" Sergey Velyugo, now the operation of the old landfill, which is about 37 years old, is over. It will be closed and reclaimed in the future. The designers made sure that not a single drop of harmful filtrate did not get into the groundwater.

Recovery is only half the battle, they need to be prepared for recycling. The technological process is continuous: first, the garbage gets into the unloading zone, and then along the conveyors - for sorting. Semi-automatic equipment in tandem with humans divides waste by type. Prepared raw materials rise along the tape, where several stages of purification pass. Organic waste is sent to the composting site, where after a while they turn into technogrunt, which is also used. As, by the way, and old furniture: it is crushed into chips for boiler rooms. Weared tires are also raw materials - this is a rubber crumb for safe coating on children's and sports grounds. But pet bottles will become the basis for synthetic fiber. This is how waste is turned into income.

Not inferior to Novopolotsk volumes Orsha garbage sorting complex. His special pride is a platform for composting organics. Food and vegetable waste, which makes up almost a third of the entire garbage basket, is converted into a safe technical soil.

- As a result of composting plant waste, we obtain biosoil. The foliage coming from the area is tracked in the faction, after which an additional power unit passes, which crushes it. The result is a kind of peat powder, which is used for pouring polygons, as well as on the flowerbeds of the city. The results are encouraging, this year good velvets have grown, says Vladimir Romanovsky, deputy director and chief engineer of the Orsha waste sorting complex. Such a creative approach today is not just an environmental trend, but a critical necessity. The traditional way of getting rid of waste, that is, banal burial in landfills, has almost exhausted itself. In the Vitebsk region, half of the landfills are no longer in operation, there are less and less free resources. Head of the Department of the State Control Committee for the Vitebsk region Andrey Butkovsky draws attention to the fact that in this regard, the technology of composting waste is promising:

- If we talk in the region as a whole, then there are very few objects where composting is performed - these are Novopolotsky, Orsha regional complexes and Vitebsk garbage processing plant. They cover 1/3 of the districts of the Vitebsk region. As for the benefits, this is not only a reduction in waste generation, but also a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, which is very important for the environment. A serious and comprehensive system of waste management and recycling is a requirement of the President. And there is enough criticism here, because the issue is not only in the environment, but also in the economy. Recycling is a serious reserve that is successfully used in many countries of the world. Not oil, not gas, but secondary material resources, which our country can and should benefit from.

- Renewable and secondary resources are literally under our feet, which we do very poorly. The phrase I have said is not just about Belarus. I often cite the example of Switzerland. Almost everything is recycled. We're going to talk to each other. There are two approaches to waste management. You can “heroically” fight them, building new polygons and sorting lines. And we can work to prevent the emergence of some waste, the Head of State emphasized on May 20 during a meeting on waste management and the use of secondary material resources.

And here you don't need to reinvent the wheel, but you need to collect and recycle. But there's no need for new capacity. It is planned to build seven new enterprises in addition to the ten that are already operating. At the same time, it is important to load already existing plants and sorting lines. So far, this does not work – only three plants and half of sorting lines are used for 90 percent or more, Vladimir Bondar, deputy head of the main department of the State Control Committee of Belarus, emphasizes:

- Today, about 5 million tons of municipal solid waste are generated in the country. The processing capacity of the existing sorting lines allows processing only about 2 million tons. In this regard, it is important to move to a more modern level of processing of MSW. New econodes are designed and built taking into account the needs of several adjacent territories at once - less burden on the environment. Now, according to this formula, a large-scale complex is being built in the Pukhovichi district. A large and, I must say, long-awaited construction unfolded near the village of Druzhny in the industrial zone. Modern infrastructure is being actively built. They promise that all logistics of collection, sorting and processing of waste from three districts will converge at this point. The new generation project plus a closed production cycle is designed to rid the central region of landfills.

- Construction work does not stop for a day. We plan to start the plant in a year. With its introduction in two districts of the Minsk region will finally close and recultivate old, exhausted their resources, landfills, — says the Director of the municipal procurement unitary enterprise “Ekovtorsnab” Alexey Bressky.

In the capital, where almost a quarter of the population of our republic lives, the struggle for cleanliness and ecology is actively underway. The metropolis generates 600,000 tons of waste annually. The figure is colossal. In order for the city to breathe freely, in 2025 a new waste processing plant was launched at the Trostenetsky landfill - a technological hub, the largest in the country and meet the capital's needs. And most importantly, the impact is tangible: the volume of extraction of secondary resources increased by 18 times. Not only the capital, but also our Western “outposts” of the green economy, for example, Grodno, are indicative. By the way, it was here that the first pilot RDF project in Belarus was implemented at the local waste disposal and sorting plant.

“An additional line of crashing was added to remove solid fractions that interfered with the work and led to a faster failure of the crusher, and a more powerful crusher was installed,” said Denis Tymoshko, director of the Grodno Plant for Waste Recycling and Mechanical sorting. Yes, pioneering status is always the risk of facing hidden challenges. Any pilot project, consider a test site. And this is an opportunity for “colleagues in the shop” in the future not to step on the same rake and avoid unplanned production stops. celyuk@sb.by