Yabloko Deputy Chairman Nikolai Rybakov took part in the rally

Press Release, 8.04.2019

On Sunday, 7 April, a rally against the “garbage reform” was held in Yekaterinburg. The action was organized by the Sverdlovsk regional branch of the Yabloko party. Residents are dissatisfied with the unreasonable increase of tariffs for waste disposal and lack of introduction of separate collection of the waste.

Nikolai Rybakov, Deputy Chairman of Yabloko  and environmentalist, spoke at the rally. “When I met with Mr. Kobylkin, Minister of Environmental Protection, in the State Duma I explained to him that what has been happening now in Russia is not a garbage reform. This is virtually not a reform. It is just collecting extra money from people and supporting old technology,” Rybakov noted. “Because this system is arranged in such a way. What did they come up with? They invented just to introduce a new fee, collect money from people but do nothing. The Sverdlovsk region demonstrates one of the highest tariffs for garbage collection in Russia amounting to 120 – 180 roubles. And they will not stop. Because the authorities have no incentive to develop modern technologies.”

Irina Skachkova, Deputy Chair of the Sverdlovsk branch of Yabloko, said that “at present military spending constitutes a third of the country’s budget, but in everyday life we have to defend ourselves not from illusory external enemies, but from garbage landfills that have filled the country”.

Photo: Irina Skachkova

Activists of the Green Front movement and other public organisations also joined the rally.

Photo: Sergei Loskutov

The organisers of the rally suggested that the participants of the action sign a resolution demanding a review of the procedure for conducting the garbage reform. The resolution will later be sent to Governor of the Sverdlovsk region Yevgeny Kuyvashev, copies will be transferred to the Public Prosecutor’s office and the President’s Reception Office.

After the rally, Nikolai Rybakov discussed the possibility of holding parliamentary hearings on the situation with separate collection of waste and its recycling with Konstantin Kiselyov, head of the Yabloko faction in the Yekaterinburg City Council and Dmitry Okatiyev, head of the Yabloko branch in the Sverdlovsk region.

Photo: Dmitry Okatiyev, Nikolai Rybakov, Konstantin Kiselyov

After that, Yabloko members attended an action in defense of a public garden by the Drama Theater. The authorities are planning to build a church of St. Catherine there instead of the garden. The participants, holding hands, “hugged” the whole square.