A group of international investors have announced they will invest in a high-tech and eco-friendly waste disposal and recycling plant in the central Russian city of Samara.
The plant will be run by a consortium of investors that include the French firm Vigo S.A., the Canadian company Magma International and Swedish company AB Auriga.
The investors said the new plant is planned to be operational by the end of 2015. It will produce an all-year-round service that would help to reduce the current burden on Samara’s rubbish landfills.
The company’s business model will also include processing of waste from small and medium business companies, construction materials and metal production facilities.
"We are very pleased with the interest shown by our partners in investment of this new type of project," Andrey Zhavoronkov, chief executive officer of Samara Investment and Development Company, said as quoted by Interfax-AVN news agency.
The plant will be built within the territory of the already operating company, Samara Environmentally Friendly Disposal (SEFD).
It was established in 2008, has a waste incineration capacity of 5,000 tons per day.
SEFD was chosen by the Russian National Committee on Environmental Policy (NNCEP) in December last year to oversee implementation of the National Strategy for Disposal and Disinfection of Municipal Waste.
NNCEP also approved creation of a consortium to build the new plant and design it.
The new plant will ensure that waste and hazardous substances do not enter the environment.
It will use an innovative technology called Thermo-Chemical Processing to separate waste into two categories: liquid and solid that will be incinerated in separate areas.
The liquid waste is then separated by a method called “membrane distillation.”
“The liquid is separated into three fractions - water, organic matter and inorganic mineral matter – and only the latter is burnt. The residue left is mostly carbon with other chemicals that are harmless for the environment,” said the CEO of the consortium, Sergey Kolesnikov.
According to the investors, the new plant will be able to process almost all types of waste except hazardous, radioactive and medical waste.
NNCEP said it is aimed at “the comprehensive solution for disposal of municipal and industrial solid waste with the use of newest technology.”
According to the environmental committee, Samara region generates about 30 million tons of waste per year, including 11 million tons of hazardous materials.
“The region of the city is covered with waste and hazardous waste dumps that pose a danger to the health of residents,” NNCEP said.
"The problem is particularly acute in the industrial parts of Samara. For example, there are six big coking plants (the largest is "Avtotorprom"),” NNCEP said.
The coking plants generate about 8,000 tons of waste a day, NNCEP said.
“In Samara region, there are nearly 70 enterprises that produce waste. It is not even mentioning the enterprises of small and medium business,” NNCEP said.
NNCEP noted that by 2020 Russia will generate up to 13,400 million tons of waste per year, mostly non-recyclable.
Besides the National Strategy for Disposal and Disinfection of Municipal Waste, the Russian government has also announced a set of environmental protection laws and a series of programs to reduce its dependency on fossil fuels.
They include the Federal Roadmap for the Development of the Russian Federation up to 2030, the National Energy Policy Strategy, and the Environmental Management Code.
"Nutrient discharge in the lake is decreasing by ten percent and we are happy about this," Vladimir Khrustalov, director of the State Committee for Hydrometeorology told Itar-Tass.
He said that the average surface temperature of the water has increased to +4.8 C from +4.3 C in the summer, while the average depth has decreased to 7.3 meters from 8.4 meters.
A wind-break zone around the lake will be created by planting pine trees, while the dredging of small lakes will be extended, he said.
Efforts are being made to regulate groundwater flows within the basin of the lake and to improve the use of available fresh water, he added.
MOSCOW, March 28. /TASS/. Moscow’s authorities have decided to take the initiative of closing the country’s "white-zones" where cars with number plates ending in “9” and “0” are not allowed to drive, Deputy Mayor Igor Alimov has told reporters.
"We are planning to make a decision on the initiative and to do so as soon as possible," he said.
Alimov said he would visit the region and speak with the Mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, on the issue.
The number plates with such endings will be moved to the "white-zones", where car owners will not be fined for violation of parking rules. "For how long these white-zones will remain and for what purposes we cannot specify it now," Alimov said.
A total of 845,000 motor vehicles with numbers plates ending in “9” and “0” were registered in the capital in 2012. Out of this number, only about one percent were not subject to the rule. "The fact is that it has become practically impossible to keep this regulation in force, since the parking rules became violated so often," the Deputy Mayor said.
TASS news agency has quoted his deputy, Sergei Strelnikov, as saying that some people had taken the initiative to move the white-zones in order to avoid the fines that were imposed for violating the parking rules.
"As for the 'white-zones', some people have taken the initiative and proposed that the number plates of vehicles with these ending will be moved from the “dark-green zones” to the “white-zones”. But this solution is not yet being considered," Alimov said.
The Deputy Mayor said that he had sent a proposal to Chief Prosecutor Yury Chaika, who suggested making amendments to the parking regulations by introducing additional "white-zones". Chaika, however, found these amendments unacceptable and left the issue in Alimov’s hands.
"At this time I do not know the details, including the number of white-zones," he said. "They can be three or five. They can be on certain roads and in certain places, which we will draw in the future. And now we are drawing the boundaries of these ‘white-zones’ on our own initiative."
He added that the initiative will be presented to the traffic committee in two days time, and then submitted to the administration of the Moscow government.
Currently, there are four “white-zones” in Moscow - the "Green Zones" near the Kremlin (at the intersection of Karetny Ryad and Malaya Bronnaya Streets), the "Blue Zones" near Moscow University (at the intersection of Garden Ring and Yaroslavskie Prudy) and at the intersections of Arbat and Leningrad Streets (north of the building of the Moscow City Administration).
MOSCOW, March 29. /TASS/. A total of 1.3 million people applied to Moscow’s authorities for a place in the first category of state social assistance, the Russian authorities’ official website said on Tuesday.
As many as 3.6 million people were granted places in the first category of state social assistance, including 9,000 people in Moscow and 18,000 in the Moscow region.
A total of 5.7 million people were refused a place in the first category of state social assistance, the website said.
In his annual address to the Federal Assembly on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned against the possible violation of the country’s demographic equilibrium, saying there would be negative consequences for the country’s economy.
"As the national leader, I think that for any country and any leader, regardless of all the other factors, preserving and developing the demographic
