Economics of food waste management in Russia

Abstract

Importance. One of the problems in the field of waste management in Russia is the exclusion of food waste, which has the largest share in the volume of municipal solid waste, from the processes of separate collection and accumulation. This preserves high risks of environmental pollution, increases waste management costs and economic losses from the loss of valuable recyclable materials. Logistics is a negative factor in the economy of waste management, the shoulder of transportation at all stages of circulation is usually large due to the remoteness of the places of formation from the places of processing and disposal. Objectives are substantiation of solving the problem of food waste management in Russia on the basis of separate collection, utilization and processing. To develop the necessary justification for solving the problem, the following tasks were set: analysis of the state of waste management in Russia; comparison of the applied methods of processing food waste; identifying ways to include households in the food waste management process; compilation of a transport model of costs for garbage removal to the places of accumulation and processing; calculation of savings in transportation costs due to the processing of the food component in the places of its formation. Methods. Justification of the priority separate collection and processing of food waste is carried out by methods of modeling, calculation of savings and factor analysis of the impact of separate collection on costs in the field of waste management. The research materials were statistical, planned and reporting data, the results obtained by domestic and foreign researchers on this topic. Results. A model of transport costs for the separate collection of waste has been developed, the quantitative effect of the separate collection of food waste on the change in transport costs for the removal of solid municipal waste has been determined using the example of urban municipalities of the Republic of Khakassia. Models of MSW transportation have been developed so far without taking selectivity into account. The factors of reducing transport costs have been identified. The discussion of the results. The developed model of transport costs for separate waste collection is useful for adjusting territorial waste management schemes in any region. The difference between this model and the existing ones is the accounting for the separate collection of food waste, which reduces transportation costs and overall costs in the industry. The implementation of the model is facilitated by the creation of a digital waste management infrastructure.