Recycling struggling to take hold in Estonia

TALLINN - By now, separate bins marked for paper, plastic and glass have become omnipresent, banal fixtures in the streets of many Western countries. "Going green" for Estonia, however, has been a slower process.

"The problem has gotten worse and worse if I compare to Soviet times," said Estonian Greens coordinator Peep Mardiste. "The volume of waste is much higher, and it is still almost impossible to recycle paper."

Estonia's main source of waste generation is oil-shale mining and oil-shale energy production, but hazardous waste yields have dropped 30 percent since 1993. At the same time, domestic waste accumulation has more than doubled since 1993 to 575,000 tons per year. Recycling of that material has been minimal, according to the latest available data in the Environment Ministry's State of the Environment Report for 1999.

In 1996, an all-time high of 25 percent of all raw and municipal waste was recycled. But levels dropped in subsequent years, hovering around 17 percent.

Robert Oetjen, director of the Estonian Fund for Nature, said that since he arrived in Estonia in 1992, he has noticed the complacency in the mainstream environmental consciousness, and not enough has been done by the government to stir up awareness and solve the problem. "At home we have nowhere to bring [waste]… It's not easy," he said.

Oetjen explained that he has seen the sheer amount of products grow a hundred-fold, but until the country catches up to the West in other respects, especially economically, the environment will not be a burning issue.

"I think for most Estonians, the problem doesn't seem too relevant. They understand and are behind the principle [of being enviromentally conscious], but they say, 'we haven't been recycling for our whole lives,'" and, he reminded, changing behavior so many years later proves a daunting task.

According to Matti Viisimaa, counselor to the Environment Ministry's waste management department, Estonia's main area of concern regarding domestic waste has been packaging materials. The Packaging Excise Act, in force since 1998 to curb excess waste in landfills, imposes a hefty tax on companies that fail to reuse or recycle at least 60 percent of their packaging materials.

Indeed, the law has pushed companies to be more careful about consumption. Saku brewery distribution manager Marko Loos claimed that 90 percent of its 140 million bottles are recycled every year.

Saku employs special collection companies to pick up the containers from pubs and shops, and citizens - mainly the poor and homeless for whom it is a primary source of income - also return them for about 80 cents each. Saku spends just 10-20 percent of what the tax would be by hiring the collection company, he said.

For now, though, Viisimaa stressed that it is simply impossible within Estonian borders to recycle a large chunk of materials, including paper and aluminum, because there is not yet enough money to build the necessary processing plants. So what is collected is shipped overseas, usually to Finland.

Despite the logistical obstacles, Tallinn's city government has moved recently to promote recycling with the passage of waste management regulations in February.

Now, the city mandates that building complexes housing more than five families provide a collection area with separate bins for paper and cardboard, according to Enn Puskar, deputy director of the city's environmental board.

Currently, the city also has 65 public collection points, with separate dumpsters for paper, cardboard, glass, aluminum and plastic, as well as 24 collection points at gas stations for hazardous waste such as paint thinner and batteries. The cost to the city: 300,000 kroons ($18,750) per year, he said.

Puskar noted that Tallinn's main landfill for municipal waste must be closed within the next two years because it violates safety codes. There are now plans to build a replacement landfill in the outlying district of Maardo.