Environmental problems of the Moscow region: the Torbeevo. Garbage collection in Torbeevo Torbeevskaya landfill is closed or not

“A decision has been made to build waste processing plants. At the first stage, there will be five of them, four of them in the Moscow region. By the way, these are good technologies, Japanese - Hitachi, I think, and our company Rostec will build it. We need to do this as quickly as possible, ”said Vladimir Putin, in particular.

Five days later, on June 20, it was officially announced that AGK-1 had won the tender for the construction of these four factories in the region. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, it is 100% owned by RT-Invest Finance LLC, in the capital of which (through RT-Invest) the state corporation Rostec is present.

Video: Facebook / Denis Kalinin

What is "Kuchino"

Governor Andrei Vorobyov personally arrived at the landfill near Balashikha immediately after the end of the live TV broadcast on June 15 and promised to "figure out the situation." On June 21, at a meeting with the townspeople, the Minister of Ecology of the Moscow Region, Alexander Kogan, said that they would no longer take waste to a landfill with an area of ​​more than 50 hectares, which is visible even from space, starting in 2019, that is, two years ahead of schedule.

Polygon "Kuchino" appeared in 1964 on the site of a worked-out clay quarry. Now its height reaches 80 m in places. The landfill receives up to 600 thousand tons of waste from the capital and different districts of the Moscow region per year.

An unauthorized dump is located on the north-eastern side of the landfill: car tires, broken bricks and other construction waste are simply dumped into the floodplain of the Pekhorka River.

Inspired in emergency mode

The government of the Moscow region was "inspired" when, on a straight line, Vladimir Putin announced the need to build incinerators, says a RBC source in the regional cabinet of ministers. According to him, now it will be easier to convince residents who are always opposed to the construction of factories. Governor Vorobyov received "the highest support" in the creation of a modern system for processing solid household waste, said a source close to the government of the Moscow Region RBC.

Vorobyov reacted to Putin's harsh statements by "closing the landfill in an emergency mode." “Further, all the activities that relate to the preparation for reclamation will be carried out,” continues the interlocutor of RBC. In the coming days, emergency measures will be taken to prevent leakage and ignition of hazardous substances at the Balashikha landfill. "Soil will be delivered to the landfill in order to block the access of oxygen, to build bypass channels," a source in the Moscow Region government explained to RBC.

The main danger today is that garbage will be dumped into ditches, quarries and forests, says a source in the Moscow Region Cabinet. The sites for replacing the Balashikha test site were found “on paper”. For example, if all the garbage was sent from Kuchino to Timokhovo, there would be a queue of 1600-1800 vehicles. For half a year, 52 illegal dumps were identified in the region, where solid household waste was dumped for several months, now it will again be necessary to catch violators, especially in the near Moscow region, the source says.

The authorities also fear that after the immediate closure of the landfill in Balashikha, there will be a "wave of appeals" from residents near other landfills to close their garbage dumps too. “If you follow this path, then in two or three months there will be a collapse. And considering that 70% of our garbage is from Moscow, it will end up in the yards of Muscovites, ”the source says.

Video: RBC

Garbage from Moscow

In recent days, officials from the Moscow Region visited the government and said that most of the garbage was brought to the region from the capital, a source said to RBC. The Moscow Region authorities do not want to quarrel with Moscow in public, but "the problem must be solved." Operators in the capital bring garbage to a sorting yard in Moscow, and then it is transported by subcontractors, whom “no one controls”.

For a year and a half, officials from the two regions discussed the issue "at the site of [Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Alexander] Khloponin, [Minister of Ecology Sergei] Donskoy." “Sobyanin says that he has signed contracts for garbage collection and is not interested in anything else. In "Kuchino" 90% of Moscow rubbish. The Moscow region has become a hostage, ”says a source in the regional government.

A source close to the Moscow Region Cabinet of Ministers also said that the problem of landfills concerns not only the region, "since garbage is also brought here from Moscow."

RBC sent questions to the capital's mayor's office whether the closure of the landfill in Balashikha will affect the situation with garbage collection from Moscow. The mayor's press secretary, Gulnara Penkova, did not return calls.

Waste reduction and recycling

Moscow is asphalted, it is impossible to dig a landfill in the capital - it is obvious that the garbage will be removed to the adjacent areas, says Alexei Kiselev, head of the toxic program of Greenpeace Russia. “Moscow should participate in reducing waste through reuse, recycling and so on, which is very bad in the capital. In addition, for landfill owners, the reception of Moscow waste is a source of income, ”Kiselev told RBC.

In 2012, Moscow entered into a government contract with several companies for 15 years for the collection and processing of waste, but the targets there are "extremely modest", says the ecologist. The main priority of the state should be to reduce the volume of waste generation, concluded Kiselev.

"Fragrant World

There are several large residential areas around the landfill, including those for law enforcement officials and the Ministry of Defense. The distance from the houses to the landfill does not exceed a kilometer.

“We bought an apartment in winter and did not know about the landfill, it was just a beautiful mountain,” Elena Smirnova, a resident of the house on Rechnoy Street in Balashikha, told RBC.

The main complaint of local residents is a strong unpleasant smell, which, according to them, provokes headaches, dizziness, nausea, coughing and other ailments. Already 300 m before the landfill itself, the smell of hydrogen sulfide, medicines and burning becomes so strong that it is almost impossible to breathe.

“This kind of atmosphere is here almost around the clock. Everything is especially felt at night, when waste is burned at the landfill. Even closed windows do not save, many residents install air purification systems at home, - said Olga Biryukova, a resident of one of the houses closest to the landfill. "Depending on the wind rose, it can stink not only in Zheleznodorozhny and Balashikha, but also in Lyubertsy and Reutovo."

In April 2017, following complaints from residents, the regulatory authorities took air samples in several microdistricts of the city, but did not find any deviations from the standards.

In total, about 11 million tons of waste is disposed of in the Moscow region per year, including 8 million tons from Moscow. There are 18 landfills operating in the region, most of them should be closed in the coming years. According to the plans of the Moscow Region authorities, which existed until June 15, the Kuchino landfill was to be closed in 2021. According to the Minister of Ecology Alexander Kogan, outside Moscow, before that, officials, together with ecologists, had to develop a project for the gradual reclamation of the landfill - at the moment it does not exist.

Where will the garbage be taken

ONF expert Anton Khlynov does not exclude that the decision to immediately close the landfill will lead to a garbage collapse.

“Where these 500 garbage trucks will go a day is a big question. I think most of this garbage will end up in unauthorized landfills, ”he told RBC. Another danger, according to Khlynov, is that there are even more problematic landfills in the region, and residents of the cities closest to them will now also begin to demand their immediate closure.

According to the Minister of Ecology of the Kogan region, solid household waste, which was previously sent to Balashikha, will be redistributed to the Torbeevo landfills (Lyuberetsky district), Timokhovo (Noginsky district), Khrabrovo (Mozhaisky district) and Aleksinsky quarry (Klinsky district).

The Torbeyevo landfill in Lyubertsy is overloaded, therefore, receiving garbage from the Kuchino closed landfill in Balashikha will be quite problematic, Vladimir Ruzhitsky, head of the Lyubertsy city district, told RIA Novosti.

“If you call a spade a spade, this is not even a landfill, but a grandiose Torbeev dump located in the vicinity of the village of Torbeevo, the village of Novy Milet. Visible from my window. They promise to close it in 2020, ”a local resident Nikolai Kalinin told RBC.

As noted by a RBC source in the public council under the Ministry of Ecology of the Moscow Region, the entire load will fall on the Aleksinsky landfill in Klin. “Now officials are trying to triple its area, so local residents need to be vigilant,” the source said.

Three more landfills are to be closed by the end of the year - "Kulakovsky" in the Chekhovsky district, "Tsarevo" in the Pushkinsky district and "Astapovo" in Lukhovitsy, the press service of the Ministry of Ecology of the Moscow region reported. Residents of the Chekhov District are now on hunger strike, demanding the immediate closure of the Kulakovsky training ground near the village of Manushkino.

“It's 400 meters from the dump to the school, this violates all laws,” Nikolai Dizhur, one of the organizers of the hunger strike, told RBC. - The officials do not hear us yet, but the road will be mastered by the one walking. I am sure that Manushkin's hunger strike will go down in the annals of history. "

“There is no reclamation project - accordingly, there is no state environmental examination, and there is no money. The main problem is that the Balashikha administration allowed the development of the territory next to the landfill, ”Aleksandr Zakondyrin, leader of the Alliance of the Greens, told RBC.

Landfill closing price

The cost of remediation of "Kuchino" may be up to 4 billion rubles. It is assumed that the money will be allocated from the federal budget. So far, the federal program "Clean Country" includes three previously closed landfills of the Moscow region - "Bykovo" (cost of reclamation - 550 million rubles), "Kashirsky" (430 million rubles) and "Elektrostal" (910 million rubles).

“Over the past five years, the Ministry of Ecology of the Moscow Region has received only one investment project, involving the implementation of measures for the reclamation of solid waste landfills at the expense of the investor. This is the Levoberezhny landfill in Khimki, ”a representative of the Moscow Region Ministry of Ecology told RBC.

According to him, 40 million tons of waste have been placed at the landfill. The landfill is not equipped with filtrate collection and degassing systems. Due to the formation of biogas during the decomposition of waste in the landfill embankment, fires often occur, which are difficult to eliminate, since it is impossible to get close to the source of combustion. As a result, a large number of complaints from the district population about the pungent odor are received.

The investment project of CJSC Industrial Company Eco involves the reclamation of the landfill with the subsequent creation of a memorial complex. Investments are estimated at 4.5 billion rubles, including 2 billion for reclamation.

“To finance the project, we plan to issue a number of public financial instruments with quotations on the stock exchange for both institutional investors and the public. The issues will be accompanied by obtaining ratings from a rating agency, registration of documentation in the Bank of Russia and appropriate disclosure of information, "a representative of CJSC Industrial Company Eco told RBC.

"The budget of the Moscow region does not have funds for the reclamation of the Levoberezhny landfill, and given the current state of the landfill and the urgent need to take measures to improve the ecological state of the area, the Ministry of Ecology supports the investment project," a ministry representative told RBC.

Waste incineration PR

A source close to the Ministry of Ecology of the Moscow Region, RBC, does not exclude that the situation with the Kuchino landfill was specially brought to the federal level in order to present the construction of incinerators as an alternative to landfills. At the same time, the construction project itself, as RBC already wrote, was criticized from different sides.

Photo: Vladislav Shatilo / RBK

“In the cities where the construction of these factories is planned, there are many thousands of protest rallies, and the authorities cannot ignore this fact. Perhaps officials believe that these protest moods will subside against the backdrop of widely publicized problems in the media with the dump in Balashikha, and thus people will understand that incinerators are the lesser of evils. At least this whole story with Balashikha looks like a PR campaign. Such decisions are not made in one day, "- said the interlocutor of RBC.

“Conceptually, it’s obvious that Putin’s speech was in support of the Rostec factories,” says Alexander Zakondyrin.

The company "RT-Invest" does not see the connection of history with the Balashikha landfill and the construction of incineration plants. “The decision to close the landfill was made in the interests of the people who live in this territory. It has nothing to do with the construction of factories, ”said Ekaterina Maltseva, assistant to the general director of RT-Invest, to RBC.

The Kuchino landfill is managed by Zagotovitel CJSC. According to SPARK, Zagotitel belongs to the international commercial company Karstat Universal LTD, registered in the Seychelles.

Activity - waste collection. General Director Vladimir Volodin. Since October 2016, it is in the process of reorganization in the form of transformation.

Net profit for 2015 amounted to RUB 2 million. The company has pending enforcement proceedings (FSSP base) due to the "impossibility to establish the location of the debtor" and "lack of property".

Until 2012, ZAO Zagotovitel was the founder of the Union of Orthodox Entrepreneurs LLC (now liquidated). Former director Yuri Morozov is now the director of Stroitel LLC, the only founder of which Yuri Kazennikov until 2011 was a co-owner of Zagotovitel CJSC. In October 2016, Rosprirodnadzor issued a perpetual license to ZAO Zagotovitel for “waste disposal and disposal activities”.

The "Torbeevo" solid waste disposal site was visited by an initiative group of social activists, local residents, representatives of the Lyubertsy administration. They saw with their own eyes the operation of the facility, asked the management the most pressing questions and promised to monitor the activities of the landfill in the future.

The work of landfills is a sore point for the Moscow region. There are many complaints from local residents about the activities of the landfill in the village of Torbeevo.

The point is that, I do not know whether it will be visible in the photograph or not. These are the views from the windows of our residents. You see, the landfill is adjacent to populated areas. First, you cannot exist next to a landfill. Of course, someone has to leave.

Public activists and members of the environmental council decided to find out if the demands of the population to close the big dump are justified. Together with the villagers and the district administration, they personally walked through the body of the landfill.

Elena Romanova, deputy head of the environmental protection department of the city administration Lyubertsy:
What is being done at the "Torbeevo" solid waste landfill. What is the modernization, reconstruction of the landfill. What is being done. Today we will see it all.

The excursion for the activists was led by the general director of the company that operates the Torbeev landfill.

There we have a barrier - just watching who enters. And here is the first dispatching office that directly accepts special vehicles.

The garbage truck undergoes mandatory radiation control at the control room. Then it goes to the covered hangar for weighing. Here, the wheels of the car are washed twice - at the entrance and at the exit, so that dust particles from the dried waste do not spread outside the sanitary zone. But the public was not impressed, the controversy about dust and smell did not die out.

Odors at the landfill are fought with the help of drainage systems. These are special pillars that go 25-30 meters deep into the garbage mountain. Degassing is carried out both on the old, preserved, and on the new body of the landfill.

Alexandra Tomei, correspondent:
We are in the very center of the new body of the Torbeevsky landfill. It is a layered "cake": a two-meter layer of compacted debris alternates with a 20-centimeter layer of soil. At the end of its life cycle, the new body of the Torbeev landfill will store about 4 million tons of garbage.
Environmental activist Anatoly Batashev visited 22 landfills near Moscow. He gave an expert assessment of Torbeevo.

Anatoly Batasheva, Chairperson of the Ecosila 50 Movement, Moscow Region:
Now, unfortunately, the Torbeevo training ground is the best in the Moscow region. Unfortunately, because there is a lot to improve here. Technologies are followed here, serious bevels are created here. Unfortunately, the houses are adjacent to the landfill.

The proximity of residential areas to the landfill requires drastic measures from the operator. The continuation of the degassing program, under which 50 drains will appear by the end of the year, and 100% sorting of waste is the way to overcome the crisis. But the main task is to work with the population.

Sergey Kotenko, director of Enita LLC:
This is not our first meeting. At least, it is good that there were no purely negative moments when residents are extremely unhappy with the state of the landfill. I didn't notice that.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that the landfill adhered to the technology and the working modernization program, the Torbeev residents did not change their opinion about the neighborhood with the garbage dump.

Elena Gavrilova, resident of the village of Torbeevo, city office Lyubertsy:
You and I can smooth anything you want. And it is beautiful to show any picture.

On the whole, the experts were satisfied. But they promised not to give the landfill management the opportunity to deviate from the technical regulations.

Evgeny Oloy, coordinator of the People's Environmental Council Lyubertsy:
Any landfill has its drawbacks, many problems. But here you can feel the hand of the owner. I advise the management of the enterprise not to relax, because we will constantly keep this issue under control.

The Moscow region authorities have been dealing with the garbage problem since 2014. Closed 24 out of 39 landfills. Now work is underway to ensure that the remaining do not cause inconvenience to residents.

MOSCOW, July 1. / Corr. TASS Alexandra Ryzhkova /. A rally for the early closure of the Torbeevo landfill in the Lyubertsy urban district of the Moscow region was held on Saturday in the adjacent Balashikha district, where the Kuchino solid waste landfill was closed on June 23 with a wide public response, the TASS correspondent reports.

The rally gathered residents of the Lyubertsy and Balashikha districts, who fear that after the closure of the Kuchinsky landfill, the environmental situation around the Torbeevskaya landfill will significantly worsen. Citizens believe that this is where the waste stream from Kuchino, 80% generated by Moscow, will be redirected.

They demanded the closure of Torbeyevo, control over the progress of preliminary work and the forthcoming reclamation of the Kuchin landfill. Also, the activists asked to decisively introduce separate waste collection in the region and tighten control over the use of funds collected from companies operating landfills for their negative impact on the environment. In addition to this, the protesters demanded that the results of the investigation into the Zagotitel company, which operated the Kuchinsky dump, be made public.

Why do residents rally

"We are on strike against the Torbeevskaya landfill. It is higher than a 10-storey building. A chemical smell is constantly coming from it. It smelled like burning before," said Tatiana, a resident of the district. She noted that she did not want to move due to the fact that the landfill ruins her family's life.

Explosive landfill gas from the Torbeevskaya landfill spreads along the ground and collects in the basements and wells of nearby houses, added another resident of the district, Natalya. In the Lyubertsy district, there were several cases of an explosion of this gas, for example, when a resident tried to light a basement with a lighter or matches, other participants of the rally confirmed.

“The packages do not reach me. And those who live closer (to the Torbeevo landfill - TASS note) are being removed from the trees,” Roman said.

Some of the rally participants were satisfied with the current situation at Torbeyevo, but feared that it would deteriorate. "About five years ago, we were suffocating from the smell from the Torbeevskaya landfill. Now it is not, but, probably, it will be, since garbage will be brought here instead of Kuchino," said Natalya, who was present at the event.

Residents of houses located near the closed landfill "Kuchino" believe that officials will fulfill their promises on reclamation on time only if the public constantly pressures and controls them. Therefore, they also took part in the rally, explained the interlocutor named Oleg.

“I would like to believe that the landfills after reclamation will become a park or a ski slope,” added Leonid, noting that this is of great importance to him.

All participants interviewed by the TASS correspondent learned about the rally from social networks or from posters and leaflets that were distributed in the settlements adjacent to the Kuchino and Torbeevo dumpsites. They came on their own initiative, only the posters were prepared by the organizers. In total, about 110 people were present at the event, according to the police who followed the order. According to the organizers, there were more than 200 of them.

There were 245 signatures under the resolution, Vera Gorbunova, a member of the organizing committee of the event, told TASS. They were all collected today, she said.

On the basis of the resolution, the activists will prepare and send an appeal to the country's leadership, summed up the head of the organizing committee Yevgenia Vaschenko.

Earlier, TASS reported that the rally was approved by the administration of the city district of Balashikha.

Kuchin dump

The "Kuchino" solid waste landfill in the Balashikha district received up to 600 thousand tons of waste per year, of which up to 80% was imported from the capital. Residents of nearby homes previously stated that the landfill began to "grow rapidly" around 2015. According to the Minister of Ecology of the Moscow Region Alexander Kogan, the landfill received part of the garbage according to "gray" schemes.

The residents of Balashikha complained about poor living conditions near the training ground to Russian President Vladimir Putin during the "Direct Line" on June 15. On June 22, the head of state returned to this issue and demanded to close the landfill within a month. On the same day, the governor of the Moscow region, Andrei Vorobyov, ordered to stop the work of the landfill from June 23.

According to the documents at the Torbeevsky solid waste landfill, everything complies with the laws.
However, the inhabitants of the nearby villages and villages are alarmed - the neighboring houses are only fifty meters away, right across the road from the landfill.
The garbage heap, the height of which is already more than twenty-story buildings, frightens the local residents.
People pay attention to the unpleasant chemical odor and the awful quality of the water. They are afraid to use local water even in everyday life.
Not so long ago, the environmental prosecutor's office and an inspection from the regional ministry of ecology visited the solid waste landfill.
What conclusions will the supervisory authority draw?
The Torbeevsky landfill is located in a densely populated area, next to the residential buildings of the city of Balashikha (no more than 40 meters to the first houses).
The village of Rusavkino-Popovishchino, Ramensky District, is not more than 150 meters away.
The village of Torbeevo in the urban settlement of Kraskov is not more than 250 meters away.
In the area, water quality dropped sharply, and the land left much to be desired. Residents sounded the alarm, at the same time contacting the local administration, prosecutor's office, environmental organizations. The solid waste landfill was checked, fined, but the activity was not stopped, limited to written answers.

On April 8, 2004, the Interdistrict Environmental Prosecutor's Office stated:

Annual monitoring showed that the work of the landfill did not have a negative impact on the environment.

The answer of the Department of State Control and Prospective Development in the Sphere of Natural Resources in April of the same year is also reassuring:

Monitoring of the state of the environment at the Torbeevo solid waste landfill is carried out in accordance with the approved plan by the State Sanitary and Epidemiological Supervision Center of the Lyubertsy District.

The Federal Service for Environmental and Nuclear Supervision in February 2005 approved:
"Under these circumstances, today there are no grounds for taking measures of administrative or other response."
So maybe there is no environmental catastrophe and the residents have come up with everything?
More precisely, have they come up with it since then until today? Well, just think, the stench is chemical, you could get used to it, or you can poison yourself with water. Drink elsewhere ...
Do your hands turn black? Or maybe you washed them badly?
The water is pouring unnatural and local residents were advised to hand over the water for radioactive cash analysis and analysis of heavy metals. This analysis is very expensive for residents, since each analysis for each substance costs about 50,000 rubles.
We contacted the ministry with a request to conduct a study of what is happening, why there is such water that corrodes hands. After using such water, hands turn black. The water has a high content of ammonia, exceeding the norm by 150 times.
In 2016, the picture is the same, only the faces are different - the landfill is working and even expanded from 12 to 70 hectares. The new management assures that expert examinations of water, earth and even air are regularly carried out at the landfill. Everything, as they say, is normal, but the sanitary zone had to be reduced from the legal 500 to 40 meters. The management recognizes the reduction of the sanitary protection zone and covers itself with some calculations, on the basis of which the zone was reduced.
The CEO of the company, who owns the landfill, confirms every word with papers.

The initiative group of residents does not have financial resources, so they modestly show a photo of the landfill and the very water that flows from the tap at home.
On the left - transparent, just from the tap, on the right - the one that has already stood for a day.
It is not known what kind of chemical processes occur with water, but it looks like it’s not just what to drink, but it’s scary to use such water in everyday life.
The management of the landfill understands the deplorable situation, but in its own way. Who is to blame and what to do in this situation has not yet been decided.
Recently Energetika i Tekhnologiya LLC received a perpetual license to use the Torbeevsky landfill.
For residents of neighboring settlements, the issue of environmental cleanliness remains open to this day.