Press release, 4.09.2018

On 31 August, Yabloko Deputy chair Nikolai Rybakov visited Saratov and took part in a round table on the environmental problems of the region. They paid special attention to the construction of the acrilamide production facility, deforestation, development of forest parks and waste sorting.

The participants of the discussion made a decision to address the head of the “Ecotechnopark” waste sorting factory with the demand of giving experts and environmentalists access to the premises of the facility. The reason for this is that activists suspect that the factory does not actualy sort waste but pile it.

Al the participants of the round table support waste sorting because waste sorting facilities are less hazardous than piling waste in landfills. But it is even more effective to recycle waste. As a rule people do not sort waste at home – mixed waste is taken to a factory and sorted there. However, some types of waste, for example, paper, cannot be recycled if they are collected together with other materials. Organic waste should be collected separately as well to produce biogas from it. The activists proposed to introduce waste sorting in one of Saratov’s districts as an experiment.

Yabloko Deputy Chair also promised to appeal to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Prosecutor General’s Office to stop development in protected natural areas.

One of the main problems in Saratov is the construction of an acrilamide production facility. The facility belongs to a French corporation SNF Flopam. The residents of Saratov are very concerned because they were not informed what the corporation will produce and what the manufacturing environment will be.

According to Rybakov, the French company is taking advantage of Russia’s weal environmental legislation and is constructing a hazardous facility in Saratov. “We must make information about the project public. The corporation must tell us about their experience in constructing facilities like this in other countries. What technologies are they going to use? What will the emission rate be? What purification mechanisms will they use? And what exactly are they going to produce,” the politician explained.

During his visits to different cities of Russia Nikolai Rybakov inspects landfill site. This way he sent an appeal to Prosecutor General’s Office after an inspection in Nizhny Novgorod. In the next few weeks he will inspect landfills in Ryzan and Yekaterinburg.