Winning the first round: «garbage» reform reaches a new level

The annual international exhibition of equipment and technologies for waste disposal and wastewater treatment WASMA has ended in Moscow. She passed for the 19th time. More than 70 companies were represented at the Expocentre site from 14 to 16 March. In addition to Russian enterprises, companies from Belarus, Turkey, Greece and India also demonstrated their products and developments.

Interest in the exhibition is growing

It is indicative that almost a third of the participants made their debut at this event - there were 20 such companies. Among them, one could meet real industrial veterans. For example, this time a delegation from one of the oldest military-industrial enterprises in St. Petersburg, the Kalinin plant, arrived in the capital. Interested in WASMA this year and the Smolensk plant KDM - the first domestic manufacturer of road and municipal equipment.

At the same time, much younger companies participated in the exhibition side by side with them, for example, the manufacturer of synthetic materials from the Saratov region "Geodor". The enterprise, which is now actively developing, including thanks to the Labor Productivity national project, has existed for 23 years. And the developer of automated recycling points, Ecopoint, is only planning to launch mass production in the Nizhny Novgorod region this summer. The idea for this project was born in 2019.

“The number of participants is increasing. It was very nice to see many new companies that are engaged in import substitution not in words but in deeds. Although this does not apply to all equipment yet, but what we saw left a really very good impression. Technology does not stand still. The industry is alive and developing,” Sergey Korolev, Deputy Director General of the Russian Ecological Operator (REO), assessed WASMA.

According to the company, for example, in the segment of equipment needed by the industry for sorting waste, it was possible to replace about 80% of imports. Profile complexes practically have no problems with deliveries. Separate necessary spare parts are supplied from abroad with the help of parallel imports, but many components and assemblies have begun to be produced by domestic factories.

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The territory of the exhibition, as well as the business program, was divided into two blocks. One part of the pavilion was dedicated to waste. The events of the 4th International Congress of Ecological Technologies were also held here. In the neighboring zone, the third conference "Treatment of industrial and domestic wastewater" was organized and stands with the relevant equipment were located.

The activities of the business program for the "water workers" were specialized. The experts, in particular, shared with colleagues the experience of applying the best available technologies in the field of wastewater treatment and discussed innovations in the processing of sludge, as well as legal subtleties in their field.

At the same time, there was a discussion in the neighborhood regarding all aspects of the modernization of the waste management system. It is carried out in Russia, including through the implementation of the national project "Ecology" and the federal project "Circular Economy", which appeared last year. WASMA is one of the first specialized exhibitions of the year, and the expert community willingly used this platform to take stock of the work done earlier and discuss plans for the future.

According to Sergei Korolev, the REO is satisfied with the results that have been achieved in Russia over the past four years.

“We are ahead of schedule. The industry already sorts over 50% of waste. Compared to 2019, this is a two-fold increase. The volume of recycling in the country has already quadrupled, we reached a figure of 12% - twice as high as planned. That is, the circular economy actually began to work even a little earlier than the passport of the federal project appeared, ”says the representative of the REO.

The first, administrative stage of the sectoral reform has been fully completed: a new institution of regional operators has been launched, territorial schemes for waste management have been approved in all regions and at the federal level, and the main regulatory legal acts necessary for the operation of companies and the provision of state support to them have been adopted. The latter includes both various kinds of consultations and assistance with financing. The REO, together with the Ministry of Construction, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Agriculture, has developed four sectoral programs for the development of a circular economy in the country. They have already been approved by the government. In 2023, eight new eco-industrial parks will appear in all federal districts of the country.

Eco-payments in the spotlight

Significant achievements in the industry include the completion of a new Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) bill. It aims to establish the collection of payments, which finance the processing of packaging and the construction of the necessary infrastructure for this. Now in the country there is an acute problem of non-payment of this fee. For more effective control, the obligation will be transferred from 4 million packaging users to 50,000 packaging manufacturers.

“We understand that without the reform of the EPR, we will not be able to completely transform the industry. First of all, these are the basic conditions, rules on which the financial basis for the development of the entire waste management industry and the circular economy will be created. The basis should be, first of all, financial calculations. It is clear that we all stand up for the purity of nature, but if a business does not see profit for itself, it is unlikely that it will invest its funds. I can say that we are already at the finish line: the draft law on the ROP is being approved by the government of the Russian Federation and should be adopted, according to our estimates, in the spring session,” said the Deputy Director General of the REO.

It is assumed that the increase in the EPR tariff and recycling rates (up to 100% by 2027) motivates companies to produce more environmentally friendly, recyclable packaging in order to avoid unnecessary financial burden.

“A simple example: the environmental fee for transparent plastic will be lower than for colored plastic, because it is easier to recycle, and more than once. This is in every sense beneficial to both the state and business. Now we are discussing a scale of coefficients for the degree of environmental friendliness and suitability for processing,” Sergey Korolev said.

According to the company's estimates, the transformation of the waste management system and payments under the extended producer responsibility will allow collecting more than 100 billion rubles a year. Now only 4.5 billion rubles are annually received from industry and trade to the state treasury at the expense of the ROP, while the population pays 200 billion for garbage collection and disposal. The economy of Russia's neighbor in the CIS is several times more modest, but the fees for the ROP are comparable and even higher - 5 billion rubles.

Green lending

According to Sergei Korolev, the MSW management industry is currently experiencing a real investment revolution.

“The number of projects that are now appearing on the market is already in the hundreds. Normal live competition has begun for contracts for the construction of new infrastructure facilities. This applies, for example, to concession agreements concluded by the regions themselves. Last year alone, 20 concession agreements for 42 billion rubles have already been signed - this has never happened before, ”a representative of the REO shared with the guests of the exhibition.

In total, the company is considering more than a hundred concession projects for financing in 2023-2024 with a need for investments of 278 billion rubles. REO plans to provide this amount using "green" bonds. This new support tool came out last year. The state subsidizes REO coupon payment on issued bonds by 90% of the key rate of the Central Bank.

“As a result, we can issue preferential loans to our investors for up to 12 years at a rate of about 5.5% per annum. At the same time, not a third of the project cost should be financed, but 90–95%, that is, only 5–10% of its cost should be invested in the project,” Sergey Korolev recalled.

According to him, this method of financing is in demand. In 2023, the company plans to issue loans for the implementation of initiatives in 14 Russian regions. At the same time, there are no restrictions on the cost of construction.

In total, the use of various support tools made it possible last year to open 36 new facilities for the processing, recycling and disposal of waste. In total, since 2019 - more than 210.

“The total investment already exceeds 150 billion rubles. We had doubts: will we be able to attract such funds to the industry, how quickly will this happen, how will the economic situation affect? However, the result exceeded even the wildest expectations,” admits Sergei Korolev.

Waste management reform is one of the most important components of the Ecology national project. You can read more about it here.

Source: National projects of the Russian Federation