Russian Recycling
Unlike their European counterparts, Russia’s city dwellers do not sort their rubbish into various green bins, blue bins and colour-coded bottle banks.
That’s because there are no bins to start with. For years, Russian apartments have been constructed with a central waste chute and a catch all on every floor.
According to the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation, only 30 percent of total waste - 3.5 billion tons a year - is recycled or processed. As for municipal waste, only 5 percent is recycled.
Without the help of residents sorting domestic waste, it isn’t easy to improve on this figure. But how could colour-coded chutes be added to all those Soviet apartments?
How about the solution adopted by architects Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano for the Centre Pompidou? Imagine. While improving recycling, it would cover up all those ugly buildings.
Before
After
The awful, stinky trash chute — one of my least favorite things about Russia.
Reminder to anyone who ever looks for an apartment in Russia — make sure that it is far away from the trash chute. It will stink up your apartment and keep you awake at night.
Hi Russophile.
The trash chute in this picture comes from an apartment block built in the nineties. It occupies a separate ‘room’ on each floor - one usually used by smokers who can’t take to the balcony in sub-zero temperatures.
Another recycling alternative would be to put back the old Soviet concierge on each floor, who says you can’t throw away glass or paper down the chute on this or that day.
Mind you. they would be susceptible to back-handers, wouldn’t they.
Recycling is very very important in order to preserve mother earth.,*;