Memorandum by the Environment Agency
RUSSIA—TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER PROJECT,
INDUSTRIAL WASTE MANAGEMENT: JUNE 1998.
PROJECT DETAILS
1. Aims—The Russian Federation
has plenty of environmental legislation; it lacks practical regulation.
The main aim of this project will be to explain UK policy on industrial
waste management, its development and how it is implemented in
practice, to assist the Russians in setting up their own regulatory
systems. Technical issues will only be covered to demonstrate
problem solving etc. The technology transfer will be achieved
through workshops which, whilst presentation-led, will be participatory
rather than wholly presentational. In the UK, the emphasis will
be on workshops leading from the Moscow workshops into site visits
illustrating practicalities, meetings with Agency stakeholders,
and meeting Agency staff who can explain further the key issues
and how we deliver in practice.
Key issues will be:
How we work;
How we relate to industry;
How we are financed; and
How we plan our business to achieve our objectives
within budgetary constraints.
A detailed proposed programme is attached; details
may vary.
2. Timing and places—Two days of
workshops in Moscow, 18-19 June 1998, followed by five days of
workshops, meetings with Agency stakeholders and site visits in
UK, 22 to 26 June 1998. The UK part will centre on NE region (based
at Leeds), which provides a far better selection of industrial
and mineral industry problems than areas around Bristol or London.
3. Scope—CPPI (Centre for Preparation
of Implementation of International Projects on Technical Assistance)
are responsible for project implementation, reporting to SCEP
(State Committee for Environmental Protection). The project is
only concerned with implementing regulation of industrial wastes.
There are some key differences with UK (and European) approaches,
as, for example, the Russians are interested in control of residues
from mining and quarrying, whilst these are not controlled by
the existing UK (or EU) directive waste management system(s).
(See also background note below).
4. Audience—Senior managers (equivalent
to Agency grade 7s, EMI and 2,: Civil Service Grades 7/6, 5 and
3) who are a mix of technical and administrators (some both).
In Moscow, there will be 20-25, of whom half
will be from CPPI, and the rest from SCEP (State Committee for
Environmental Protection). Translation will be provided.
Ten of these people will travel to the UK, including
three technical people fluent in English and one professional
interpreter. It will be possible to split the group into two for
different site visits, 1:1 discussions, etc.
5. Terminology—This will be important,
to key the audience in. Do not expect commonly used UK/European
terms to relate to the same concepts; e.g., Russia has 16 different
terms for disposal sites, many euphemistic, such as "polygon".
We should ensure in presentations and workshops that we have defined
key concepts, rather than use terms commonly used in the UK such
as "landfill". Good sources would be Waste Management
Paper glossaries, and the ISWA publications.
6. Sustainability and cost-benefit—There
will be little data available on Russian costs and quantities;
there are limited funds, and expensive "high tech" solutions
will not be easy to resource in the near future. The CPPI and
SCEP will be interested in our experiences of:
— Assessment of waste arisings.
— Cost analysis and implementation
of BATNEEC—(from PIR).
— Risk assessment of options and sites
(Cross-functional).
— Assessment of BPEO—PIR and
Waste.
— Use of various options; our experience
of landfill, landspreading, cement kilns, etc.
— Regulatory activities; how we go
about them.
— Our interface with waste management
facility operators, industry and other Agency stakeholders.
We will also look at sustainability, waste
strategies of waste minimisation, reduction, reuse and recycling.
Paul Tempany
Waste Regulation Policy Group
28 April 1998
BACKGROUND NOTE
This project is a small part of the EMP (Environmental
Management Project), which is an overall framework programme of
environmental technical assistance developed by SCEP and the World
Bank. SCEP has assigned project management to CPPI.
The EMP comprises five main components of which
hazardous (industrial) waste management is one. It has two core
sub-components; development of a National Industrial Waste Data
Management System, and; development and demonstration of a regulatory
management system for hazardous (industrial) waste control at
the regional level. For each sub-component an international consultancy
has been appointed to work alongside CPPI: ERM (Environmental
Resources Management) of the UK is undertaking both of these sub-components.
The demonstration region is Sverdlovsk Oblast
in the Ural Mountains, which is at least the size of England and
Wales. It is the heart of a large ferrous and non-ferrous metals
industry. Mining and the associated wastes from mining and smelting
date from the 18th century and covers vast areas.
The main consequence of the planned central
economy concept on industrial waste management (IWM) was that
all wastes were considered recyclable. This may have been possible,
but was rarely practised; the Soviet Union never fully accepted
that the feasibility of waste recycling should be determined by
its process costs and marketability of recycled materials. Accordingly,
waste as a concept was not recognised until the Russian Federation
was formed, and the market economy accepted.
However, some of the Soviet concepts are still
practised, leading to enormous quantities of industrial wastes
"stockpiled" on unprepared land, officially awaiting
recycling. In the Unspecified future. The practice of accumulating
waste is differently defined from disposal by burial, although
the function may in effect be the same.
By comparison with Western Europe and North
America, three main points emerge:
— the "official" extent of
the uncontrolled hazardous/industrial waste disposal legacy in
the RF is much less than in the West. In practice, the situation
is probably worse, the difference being most sites are not disposal
sites, but storage areas awaiting recycling;
— the absence of "wastes"
in the past effectively delayed any focus on the engineering of
disposal sites to protect the environment (which started in the
1970's in the West);
— Legislation is in place. However,
there has been little effective implementation or enforcement.
It is also important to note that industrial
waste waters are included under the definition of industrial waste;
about seven billion tonnes of waste waters per annum in the RF.
These waters are allowed to be disposed of on land without treatment.
IWs are defined as waste generated in mining, manufacturing, processing,
and service industry sectors. As these wastes have differing characteristics,
problems emerge if one IWM concept is considered as the solution.
Overall, there are differences due to cultural
background and history. For example, after industry being subject
to central control with minimal environmental protection enforcement,
there is now wide public and regulatory distrust of industry and
its ability to change or comply with legislation; the UK's views
on self-regulation may therefore be at odds with the Russian experience.
Another major difference is in the concept of
"environmental fees". The legislation which is implemented
focused on fee collection: any disposal of industrial waste off-site
incurs a set fee, which is split between the facility and an environmental
fund. The latter is used to support environmental investment projects.
However, some of the "storage" of wastes may be to avoid
paying these fees.
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