‘We’re going backwards’: Kazan authorities comment over ‘deplorable sight’ of waste collection

The number of complaints about delayed waste collection from citizens rose in Kazan in early 2023, watchdogs claim the solid waste collection sites are unsatisfactory, said vice head of the city’s Executive Committee for housing utilities and civil protection Iskander Giniyatullin. After hearing his report, Mayor of the capital of Tatarstan Ilsur Metshin said that steps back were made in solving the problem.

“We are going backwards in the issue for the first time in my experience of work as mayor, both in Kazan and before. We had an operating effective system we were the first to launch creating a chain: waste collection, disposal, recycling and sorting. But the new legislation is out and we have been waiting for so much, we were sure the environmental situation would improve, not get worse. Unfortunately, the situation is the same in all the regions, not only in Kazan, in our neighbours in municipalities,” the mayor claimed and added there was no point in discussing this law, “it is necessary to urgently make changes to make it work.”

The Kazan mayor paid attention to the fact that “the morphology of waste changes,” its amount was changing.

“If decisions aren’t made today, as practice shows, we may have no tomorrow,” he said.

As Iskander Giniyatullin said, Open Kazan system has received 1.500 applications related to waste collection since early 2023, almost three times more than during the first four months last year. According to him, “the sight is deplorable,” especially compared to the previous years.