Rosprirodnadzor began to actively suspend the work of landfills
In an attempt to activate garbage reform, the regulators began to use key instruments of stateliness in order to increase its effectiveness. From March 1, 2025, holders of waste management are required to independently confirm their compliance with the requirements for them. The number of suspended licenses has grown sharply, and the owners of landfills and utilizers fell under the main blow. The suspension is a fairly tough tool that demonstrates the determination of the regulator to put things in order in waste management, but the time allocated to eliminate the problems of the licensee, according to the market, is clearly not enough.
Since March 1, 2025, the companies that work with waste, every three years must independently confirm the compliance of their activities with licensing requirements. Organizations that issued licenses or licensed verification more than three years ago were the first to fall under the new requirements, the deadline for submitting an application for them occurred on March 3, 2025. Earlier, Rosprirodnadzor appreciated compliance with the requirements during planned inspections.
Now, if violations are identified, the department can suspend the license, and according to No. 99-FZ-by its own decision made within a day.
The license can suspend the license for 3-5 months if the company has not applied for its extension (if a gross violation is detected, the suspension period is limited to 60 days and can be increased by 60 days if additional time is required to eliminate violations). If the suspension period has expired, and the violations are not eliminated, Rosprirodnadzor will apply to the court with a statement on the cancellation of the license. As the head of the Service, Svetlana Rodionova, reported in the Federation Council in February, almost 17 thousand waste management of waste is subject to overwhelming in the industry.
According to the register on the portal of control and supervision activities, by April 25, 2025, 36 133 “garbage” licenses were listed in it, of which 22,554 (62.4%) were valid. The analysis carried out by the ENV consulting company at Kommersant showed a sharp increase in the number of suspended licenses after the entry into force of the requirements for their confirmation. So, only from April 4 to 23, 2025 it grew from 10 to 92 for utilizers, from 7 to 48 for companies engaged in waste placement, and from 7 to 53 – their neutralization.
They can suspend the license for gross violations or delay when applying for its extension.
Grold violations are the lack of confirmed competencies and the operation of the facility with a retreat from the norms agreed by the State Environmental Expertise (GEE).
The problem for the objects of recycling and neutralization of waste is the absence of GEE conclusions on the equipment and technology used – in this case, Rosprirodnadzor automatically requires their design as new developments (the time for eliminating the violation is determined by the controller, the check can be postponed until the next extension of the license, that is, for three years).
The suspension of a license per day is a hard pressure tool for companies that operate with waste. “Regardless of the reasons, the suspension prohibits all licensed activities, which blocks the work on existing contracts with counterparties and with its own waste, creates the risks of increasing the amount of the payment for the negative impact on the environment and the ECCOCKORY,” said Irina Demina, general director of ENV.
On the one hand, the regulator demonstrates the determination to restore order in the field of waste management and clear the industry from unscrupulous companies, on the other hand, this clearing may turn out to be “paper” and the real problems of the industry will be unattended. Thus, the term allotted to eliminate gross violations (on average up to 30 days) will theoretically allow the training of employees (38 hours of classes are allocated to study the standard program of the Ministry of Natural Resources) – but to bring objects of waste disposal or technology for their neutralization and disposal in accordance with the documentation for which the GEE received will not work quickly.
The question of old objects and perennial violations is especially acute – the documentation that must be complyed was developed as previous requirements for other types of waste, and its validity expired. “It is more logical to talk about the development of new design solutions – in 60 days and even 120 days to cope with such a job is unrealistic,” said Mrs. Demina. Therefore, the choice of license owners in such cases is small: either to close the object or conduct activities with violation of the law. However, for Rosprirodnadzor, to identify all violations in ten days is a difficult task, given the probable volume of simultaneously incoming statements.
