Press release, 29.01.2019

Yabloko to participate in All-Russia protest agains the waste treatment reform. The action will take place on 3 February. Activists will join take part in protest actions in 32 regions of Russia. What is more, Yabloko will organise the actions in half of these places.

The participants of the actions demand that the government reconsider tariffs on municipal waste treatment and introduce separate waste collection. Moreover, activists will touch upon the issues that are relevant in their regions.

Last year similar actions took place in different cities of Russia. About 30,000 people joined the protest. They demanded that the construction of a landfill in Shies stopped. They also protested against the transferral of municipal solid waste from Moscow to other cities in Russia. The protesters demanded that governor of the Arkhangelsk Region resign and that the government should introduce recycling. The next action will take place on 3 February as the government refused to fulfil the will of the people.

Yabloko is planning to participate in protest actions in Bashkiria, Tatarstan, Chuvashia, Altai Krai, Perm Krai, Stavropol Krai, Arkhangelsk Region, Volgograd Region, Vologda Region, Voronezh Region, Ivanovo Region, Irkutsk Region, Kaliningrad Region, Kostroma Region, Kurgan Region, Moscow Region, Nizhny Novgorod Region, Novgorod Region, Novosibirsk Region, Omsk Region, Rostov Region, Sverdlovsk Region, Tambov Region, Tula Region, Tyumen Region, Ulyanovsk Region, Chelyabinsk Region, and in Moscow.

The regional authorities refused to authorise protest actions in Altai Republic, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Kransnodar Krai and Novosibirsk Region.

Earlier Yabloko proposed an alternative programme on solid waste treatment. It will allow for recycling up to 70 per cent of municipal waste by 2030, decrease the number of waste that is taken to landfills by 80 percent, and create over 250,000 jobs.

Yabloko Deputy Chair Nikolai Rybakov raised the problem of transportation of Moscow garbage to the Arkhangelsk Region in the State Duma meeting on 5 December. [Non-parliamentary parties are invited to participate in the parliament’s meetings once a year.]

On December 12, a delegation of Moscow municipal deputies handed over to the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation an open letter against transportation of municipal garbage from Moscow to other Russian regions.