Press Release, 24.04.2018

Yabloko Chair Emilia Slabunova has forwarded an appeal to Anna Popva, chief sanitary doctor of Russia, and head of the Federal Supervision Agency for Customer Protection and Human Welfare (Rospotrebnadzor), Artyom Sidorov, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, and Olga Zubrilova, First Deputy Chairman of the government of Moscow region, asking them to solve the problem with garbage landfills in the region.

Slabunova demands, that the Russian environmental watchdog Rosprirodnadzor (the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resource Usage) checks the operation of the following suburban solid waste landfills: Yadrovo, Shatura, Tsarevo, Khrabrovo, Torbeyevo, Timokhovo, Taldomsky, Saburovo, Pavlovsky, Nepeino, Malaya Dubna, Lesnaya, Kargashino, Yegorievsky, Dolgoprudny, Volovichi, Astapovo, and Aleksinskiy Quary.

Yabloko Chair demands from Rospotrebnadzor to verify the compliance of these landfills to sanitary regulations.

Slabunova also asks Olga Zubrilova, First Deputy Chairman of the government of the Moscow region, who is in charge of the issues of health care, education, social protection, labour and employment, to conduct a  thorough clinical examination of people living and working in a 10 km radius from these landfills.

According to Slabunova, after medical examination, schoolchildren from such environmentally unsafe areas should be given vouchers to children’s recreation camps in environmentally safe areas for the whole summer period. Moreover, low income families should have an opportunity to send children to summer recreation camps entirely at the expense of the budget of the Moscow region, and the rest of the families should have it at a discounted price. Adults must be granted an additional paid vacation.

It should be noted that on 14 April, the birthday of the Governor of Moscow region Andrei Vorobyov, mass protests under the slogn #StopTheLandfill were held in different cities of the Moscow region, where the rights of citizens to ecologically safe environment were violated. The initiator of the action was Nikolai Dizhur, Chairman of the Yabloko faction in the city of Chekhov. Yabloko Chair Emilia Slabunova also took part in the rally in the Serpukhov district.