Riga municipality and three waste management companies have for the first time in Latvia jointly created a single guide for the convenience of residents, which will help to navigate waste sorting more easily, thus promoting more active involvement of Riga residents in the process of separate waste collection, as well as helping to reduce the costs of unsorted waste management.
The guide is available and downloadable on the official website of the Riga municipality https://www.riga.lv/lv/atkritumu-skirosanas-celvedis, it will also be distributed to its customers in electronic and printed form by the municipal company “Rīgas namu pārvādāvs” (RNP). Other building managers are also invited to participate in the distribution and use of the guide. Answers to frequently asked questions about waste sorting are also available on the Riga City Council website.
Until now, each waste management company operated according to slightly different guidelines, so it was not clear to all residents which waste could be thrown into sorting containers and which could not. Now, in joint work, a guide has been created that will simplify and standardize the sorting process for residents as much as possible, so that they no longer have to think about what to throw in the container when driving home from work in different areas in Riga.
“The aim of the Riga City Council is to create the best examples in environmental policy. Our basic principle is to provide every resident with the opportunity to live comfortably and cheaply in an environmentally friendly way. Strengthening this principle, we have already increased the amount of sorted waste from 20% to 25%. Riga residents have already saved more than nine million euros by sorting. Currently, the number of sorting options is rapidly increasing, because the installation of containers must be done at each apartment building. It has increased by 15% for packaging and 35% for glass containers. Importantly, shared waste collection is an opportunity to reduce bills, as the removal of packaging is free. Agreement on the principles of sorting throughout Riga helps each resident agree with his neighbors on this path to cost reduction,” emphasizes Edmunds Cepurītis, chairman of the Riga City Council’s Housing and Environment Committee.
“Waste sorting is becoming a norm in Riga. Since the beginning of last year, the number of light packaging containers has increased by more than 4,000. As a result, the number of Riga residents who do not have the opportunity to conveniently sort their waste has decreased significantly – we rarely receive complaints about the lack of containers. Today, we have taken another important step towards an affordable and easy-to-understand system for separate waste collection, with clearly explained benefits. This sorting standard is a response to the frequent request of residents to clearly state what can and cannot be sorted in Riga. This allows everyone who wants to talk about separate waste collection in Riga to speak with one voice and provide accurate information. House managers, educators, environmental activists – everyone who wants to talk about waste sorting in Riga can use this material and be sure that this is exactly the information that the municipality wants to convey to its residents,” says the Riga City Council member and the Waste Reduction and Sorting Working Group manager Mairit Luse.
Jānis Aizbalts, chairman of the board of SIA “Eco Baltia vide”, explains that for the time being in Latvia, the conditions for waste sorting may be different in the regions: “One thing is to promote that waste sorting is economically beneficial for people, the other is to make it a simple process. We see that the sorting quality can be affected by various external conditions. For example, during Covid, when the amount of single-use packaging in stores significantly increased, we observed that the proportion of unrecyclable waste in sorted waste increased from approximately 15% in 2019 to 25% in 2021. Currently, this percentage is decreasing again, proving that people are trying to choose recyclable packaging. However, in general, the most important thing that people should understand is that sorting is necessary and should be done. What follows is the responsibility of the waste managers – to separate the collected by the residents by material types and to direct it to recycling, while what is not yet suitable for recycling should be used in other ways.”
SIA “Clean R” Sustainability Project Manager Liene Rumpane emphasizes that simplicity in sorting conditions is a basic request from residents who want to start sorting waste: “Simple rules, interesting stories of other people’s experiences, real examples and comfortable infrastructure both in the apartment and in the yard are the most important factors , which motivates the population to sort. In his experiment “Don’t ruin the future!” in cooperation with RNP, we gained two important insights. First of all, after learning that a small, six-apartment house literally throws away 720 euros in garbage due to non-separation, and calculating that it is already 3,600 euros for a 30-apartment house, many people really wondered – is it really not worth investing this money in home improvements, instead of throwing it away. The second insight – even a complete non-sorter of waste can become a proper sorter, if he is provided with everything necessary for sorting. Seeing that while others’ utility costs increase, for a house that has started sorting, they become m
less, residents get excited and sort more and more neatly. On the other hand, in the spring of this year, a large-scale population survey highlighted the fact that it is essential for people to receive simple and understandable information about why sorting is necessary, how to sort and how much sorting can save. As a factor hindering sorting, the residents in the survey highlighted the different sorting requirements within the same municipality. The fact that Riga is the first municipality where all waste managers have agreed on a single sorting standard significantly improves the situation and we believe that the sorting guide in Riga will improve both the awareness of the residents and the quality of the sorted waste. At the same time, it is essential to continue to carry out educational activities for the population and ensure that the jointly developed sorting guide reaches the population.”
“According to our monitoring of sorted waste, more than 30% of sorted waste ends up in household waste, as it is unsuitable for recycling or energy production. We assume that this is the result of the different guidelines of waste managers, which until now were very different and confused those who want to sort. Despite the fact that agreeing on a common direction for waste sorting throughout Riga was quite a time-consuming and complicated process, we have successfully reached the final result and we are pleased with it,” informs Jurģis Ugors, director of “Lautus Vide PS”.
RNP customers will receive information about this guide already this month in their bills, as well as sorting infographic posters will be placed in RNP houses in May. RNP emphasizes that the new joint guidelines will facilitate and improve sorting in all Riga waste management zones.
In 2021, compared to 2020, the number of packaging containers located in Riga increased by 2400, glass containers – by 1200, and the number of BIO waste containers increased by 1500. In 2020, 20% of waste was collected separately, and in 2021 – already 24 %.
In the first months of this year, the number of light packaging containers increased by 1,927, glass – by 1,704, BIO – by 58. In total, there are 15,480 light packaging containers, 6,471 glass containers and 1,883 BIO containers in Riga.
By sorting light packaging and glass containers, Riga residents have saved 9.5 million euros in 2021 – this is the money that the residents would have paid if the sorted waste had been taken out and managed as household waste. Compared to the previous year, an additional 1.5 million euros have been saved.
The Riga municipality reminds that the installation of packaging and glass containers and the removal of this separately collected waste is free of charge, in contrast to the removal of the household waste container, for which residents have to pay. Each large packaging container that is sorted correctly and disposed of as a packaging container in 2022 can reduce household waste management expenses by up to 35%.
Informāciju sagatavoja: Mārtiņš Vilemsons – Rīgas domes Komunikācijas pārvaldes Ārējās komunikācijas nodaļas projektu koordinators
