During a government meeting, Kazakhstan's Minister of Ecology, Erlan Nysanbayev, announced plans to construct 37 new plants for solid waste processing in major cities, as reported by Zakon.kz. Nysanbayev stated that 45 projects have been developed, with 37 new plants and the modernization of eight existing ones, totaling a capacity of over 1.2 million tons per year at a cost of 171.6 billion tenge.
The implementation of these projects aims to increase waste processing to 1.5 million tons per year. The relaunched EsQoldaý program will ensure a sufficient supply of raw materials to both existing and newly established plants. Special enterprises will receive payments, with 7.6 billion tenge allocated for this purpose this year.
Nysanbayev emphasized the importance of ensuring an adequate number of containers and garbage trucks. Currently, there are 133,000 containers in the country, with a shortage of around 60,000. Major cities are served by 1681 units of waste collection vehicles, with an additional need for about 900 units, including 223 covered by investment projects.
The procurement of containers and garbage trucks should be funded by local budgets and private investments. All projects have been coordinated with local executive bodies and will soon be submitted for consideration to the Industrial Development Fund. Nysanbayev urged local authorities to oversee each project until its completion and requested the Industrial Development Fund to expedite the review process.
Starting from April 1, 2024, Almaty plans to increase the waste removal tariff. The new tariff will be raised by 165.46, amounting to 718.5 tenge per resident per month.
