Abstract
Modern Economic and Geographical Characteristics and Prospects of Development of Environmental Protection Infrastructure in the Baikal Region of Russia In the administrative division of Russia, the Baikal region is traditionally considered as embracing three parts: the Irkutsk oblast', the Republic of Buryatia, and Zabaikalsky Kray. Its area is three times larger than that of France (1.6 million km2), but its population size and density are typical of "the Siberian depth of the country" (4.6 million people, under 3 persons/km2). One of the most important global features of a part of this region - the Baikal Natural Territory - is to ensure the preservation of Lake Baikal as a World Heritage Site. A strategy of environmentally oriented land use determines an adequate level of development of ecological infrastructure and its most important sector - environmental protection infrastructure (EPI). The article presents an analysis of the current infrastructure for managing solid waste, and proposes a forecast scenario of its development with the use of the gravity model in the EPI sector involving recycling collection points.
Highlights
Environmental protection infrastructure (EPI) is a functionally separate unit of facilities, industries and enterprises for recycling, depositing and neutralising waste – a waste management system which includes the whole complex of measures ensuring control and management of waste streams and information support on the technology of their treatment and recycling
The EPI sector of waste storage is characterised by a wide variety of engineering and technical facilities: from the simplest collection points accepting and segregating recyclables to specialised plants, and from storage sites for non-recyclable production waste to complex engineering structures like artificial containers for burying and surface storage of industrial waste
The currently adopted policy of enhancing regional development and strengthening municipal government requires the strengthening of the hierarchical system of local centres, equipping them with market infrastructure, and reinforcing their multifunctional role, in the recovery sphere
Summary
In the Baikal region there operate (or have operated) EPI facilities of the following status: –– federal: waste from other Russian regions, e.g. PA Radon deposits special waste from the neighbouring units: Zabaikalsky Kray and the Republics of Buryatia and Sakha (Yakutia); –– regional: facilities that usually cover a large part of the territory of the federal entity, as exemplified by enterprises for the collection and part processing of metallic and non-metallic recyclables; classical facilities are the Cheremkhovsky Cardboard-Rubber Plant, the Selenginsky Factory complex, and the Alarsky Waste Plant; –– ‘raion’ (above-local) level, including EPI facilities of large enterprises, and –– local, serving a specific manufacturing unit or a settlement. The EPI sector of waste storage is characterised by a wide variety of engineering and technical facilities: from the simplest collection points accepting and segregating recyclables to specialised plants (one operating in Ulan-Ude, another planned in Irkutsk), and from storage sites for non-recyclable production waste to complex en-. Among the member units of the Baikal region, the largest number of EPI objects of the production waste profile is concentrated in the Irkutsk oblast’: ash dumps, sludge ponds, tailings dams, etc. By area occupied by EPI facilities, the Irkutsk oblast’ is the leader (1,628.8 ha), followed by the other two regional entities with barely differing indices (the Republic of Buryatia and Zabaikalsky Kray, 1443.1 and 1437.7 ha, respectively). There is inefficient use and wrong allocation of funds offered by private business for investment in facilities processing and storing production and consumer waste
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