Waste recycling complex is not enough manpower

Over the past year, the Ural solid waste landfill, according to its new managers, did not burn once. This was the result of the fact that the owner of the landfill has established a garbage sorting system here – and now flammable paper and cardboard do not get to the landfill. The investor also purchased equipment that rams garbage with the ground, as it should be according to the technology of waste disposal.

In 2020, local authorities approved a new tariff for garbage collection and disposal, which was almost twice as high as the previous one.

Insisting on raising the tariff, the first heads of companies engaged in sanitary cleaning of the city and the maintenance of the landfill, explained that they do not have enough money to work. Since the territory of the city has grown and the current tariff does not cover all transport and other costs. At the same time, they promised that they would invest in modernizing and improving their work.

In the last days of the current year, WKO akim Gali Iskaliyev paid a working visit to the solid waste landfill in Uralsk to see what changes have occurred after the increase in the tariff for garbage collection.

Head of "Green service" LLP (landfill management company) Batyrbek Iksanov, Director of the landfill management company, said that it will soon be two years since they took the city dump under their management.

Several waste sorting lines were built here. And recently opened a shop for processing plastic bags.

180-200 tons of garbage are brought here per day (at the end of 2017, 140-150 tons of solid waste were exported from Uralsk per day).

Due to the lack of personnel, only half of the imported waste – 90 tons-goes to the sorting lines. Sorters choose from the total mass of litter up to 3 tons of waste they need – this is an average of 800 kilograms of PET bottles, 1 ton of waste paper, 1 ton of glass, and the remaining – polyethylene. Other waste is disposed of at the landfill. Some of the selected recyclables are processed in Russia. Some of them remain in Kazakhstan.

"Our main problem today is the lack of working personnel," says Azamat Bisenov, a representative of the company – investor of the enterprise - ICM Recaicling LLP. - In April of last year, when we just opened the waste sorting lines, about 140 people were accepted here, but many of them almost immediately left. Currently, only 45 people work on sorting garbage. At the same time, we give out a salary of 100 thousand tenge. From Peremetny, Beles and from Uralsk, official transport goes, free meals are organized for employees at lunch, but people do not stay here. From the labor Exchange in the direction of the unemployed come, but their fuse is enough for 2-3 days. The strong smell of the landfill discourages them from working at the waste sorting complex.

So, 24 people should stand on the conveyor belt, in fact, only 10-12 people work on the lines. Sorting shops operate at only half their capacity.

Azamat Bisenov notes that waste paper is a big problem for the region. Now about 180 tons of cardboard boxes have accumulated in the hangar of the waste sorting complex. The region does not have its own enterprise for processing used cardboard. The Kazakhstan enterprise "Almaty Kagazy" does not accept soiled cardboard from garbage containers, and it is forbidden to export it to Russia. This cardboard from the landfill used to be exported to the neighboring region of the Russian Federation – Samara, back in July-August of this year, entrepreneurs were able to take out part of the stale recyclables there. But now the country again has a ban on the export of waste paper to Russia.

Now they have taken up recycling: plastic bags and quartz sand are used in a melting furnace to make paving slabs and curbs. During the year, when the tile passes all the necessary technical tests and the company receives the necessary certificates for its production, it will be ready to start its production for sale.

The capacity of the equipment is 50 square meters of tiles per shift. Raw materials abound. If there were people, the melting furnace would be 100% loaded. Now there is no one to select packages, and the furnace is only half used.

Speaking about the improvements at the landfill, Bisenov noted that this year the company planted 380 trees in the area around the landfill to improve the environmental situation.

Not a single major fire occurred at the landfill during the year (in 2019 there were over 100 of them). At the beginning of 2020, the company purchased specialized equipment that does not just fill the garbage with earth, but presses it, mixing it with the soil.

As a result, there are practically no garbage piles in the landfill – here all the waste is distributed in an even layer on the surface of the earth, gases do not accumulate in them and, accordingly, there is no fire. This fact caused special approval from the akim of the region – Gali Iskaliyev thanked the managers of the landfill for the fact that the residents of the surrounding villages and microdistricts now do not breathe burning, which was once a constant companion of the city dump.

Lyudmila Kalashnikova,

zhaikpress.kz