Problems of solid waste management for recreation zones of St Petersburg

Abstract

More than 1.5 million city dwellers spend every summer in their garden houses in the sites
around St Petersburg. Really it is a land of the Leningrad region. Total amount of solid waste
from them is about 72.1 thousand ton per year. It is about 20% of total amount of waste from
permanent habitants of these places. Besides 724.6 ton of waste per year is from short-term
recreants who visit forests, lakes, rivers and other places for rest. The morphological structure
of solid waste from the recreants essentially differs from structure of city waste: shares of
metals and plastics are much more.
The most problem is that there is no a legal solid waste management system for recreants.
One of the reasons is that recreants use territories outside places of living for permanent
inhabitants. As a result numerous landfills have been appeared during last years. Dangerous
contamination of surrounded soil and water is obvious. No special control from local
authorities is existed. There is an urgent task to develop local legislation for recreant solid
waste management. Unfortunately the Leningrad region has rather aged solid waste
management. Practically only landfilling is used for solid waste. In the case of using only
landfilling for recreant waste it is needed at least 4 7 ha of lands for new landfills.
The most reasonable alternative is a joint solid waste management for both permanent
habitants and recreants. It will allow reducing cost of the whole system. In this case it will be
easier to attract investment for introducing the appropriate system basing on modem
technologies. Experience of Finland when neighboring municipalities combine their resources
for solving this problem is the best way also for St Petersburg. In this case different methods
of waste processing can be used: compost digesting, incineration, recycling and landfilling for
the rest waste.