[The sanitary and epidemiological problems in production and consumption waste handling in the Russian Federation]

At the initiative of the bodies and organizations of the Russian Agency for Consumer Surveillance, the interdepartmental commissions on sanitary purification and on production and consumption waste handling heard more than 2275 items on the subjects of the Russian Federation in 2007. In 2006-2007, in all the subjects of the Russian Federation work was under way with the local authorities to legalize or liquidate unauthorized sites of waste disposal in rural settlements. As compared with 2006, there was a reduction in both the number of unauthorized dumps from 11,062 to 9,069 and the area under them from 33,587.6 to 29,506 ha. According to the administrations of the Russian Agency for Consumer Surveillance, in 2007, the number of enterprises generating waste was 1,092,871, of them 91.2% of the enterprises were under the control of bodies and organizations of the Russian Agency for Consumer Surveillance. The largest number of enterprises (813,233) produces domestic waste and 173,272 enterprises generate factory waste; as for poultry farming and cattle breeding waste, sewage sludge, and agrochemicals, these accounted for less than 10%. As compared with 2006, the number of sludge traps, tailing pits, waste banks, terraces, ash-and-slad burrows, etc. increased and amounted to 2,338. The reduction in the volume of accumulated waste, by involving the latter into the economic turnover, by introducing and improving their processing technologies is urgent. The highest percentage of waste utilization was achieved by building enterprises (91%), followed by agricultural ones (77%). At the same time this index at the enterprising generating the bulk of waste, namely, at the minerals-extracting enterprises, is 39% as that in Russia. In 2007, pesticides and agrochemicals were kept at 5600 storage facilities, of which as many as 2180 have a sanitary-and-epidemiological opinion; 60% of the storage facilities have an organized control area.