Current Approaches to Waste Management in Belarus

Abstract

Sustainable waste management in the Republic of Belarus is an urgent problem. This is mostly due to the lack of understanding of the need to sort waste, the lack of pledge containers’ turnover, of sorting opportunities in rural areas. About 1500 types of waste with a wide range of morphological and chemical properties are produced in Belarus. Most waste is generated at Belaruskali JSC. That is why the improvement of waste management in Belarus, as in all developed countries of the world, is recognized as a priority and a specific problem to solve for environmental protection. The Republic of Belarus has been taking some steps in the field of waste management, within the framework of the goals and objectives of the Strategy of sustainable social and economic development and the Strategy of environmental protection. Notwithstanding a certain progress in the field of the industrial waste management, there is still much to be done in the field of municipal waste management. One of the promising solutions this respect is the public-private partnership, which means the involvement of private businesses on a contractual basis for a more efficient and high-quality performance of tasks related to the public sector of the economy in the terms of cost compensation, risk sharing, obligations, competencies. The present research was aimed at studying the public-private partnership in waste management. It involved the analysis of the national and international legislation in the field of waste management; as well as of the experience of such partnership. The article discusses the experience of partnership of state bodies of the Republic of Belarus with a leading global company. An example of such a partnership is the agreement concluded by Remondis JLLC with the administration of one of the regions of Belarus—the city of Soligorsk. The agreement will allow developing and implementing a new concept of creating a closed cycle of waste management.