Taimyr’s Ecological Challenges: Local Strategies for Recycling Municipal Solid Waste

Abstract

The article discusses the issue of landfills and recycling municipal solid waste in settlements of the Arctic. In the conditions of the Far North, aggravated by severe climates, landscape features, and insufficiently developed infrastructure for waste disposal, this issue is crucial and often difficult to solve in practice. The article is conceived as an attempt to consider the local experience of Taimyr residents in regard to waste disposal. Responding to arising challenges, local residents devise various strategies for solving the issue and dealing with the increase in the amount of municipal solid waste, the organization of technological landfills, the logistics of waste removal, and the lack of recycling plants. These strategies range from arranging specialized places for recycling to mobilizing volunteer movements for cleaning. The article draws on field materials collected over the past few years in the Taimyr Dolgano-Nenets municipal district of the Krasnoyarsk Krai in the following settlements: Khatanga, Kresty, Novaya, Kheta, Katyryk, Zhdanikha, Novorybnaya, Ust-Avam, Volochanka, Levinskiye Peski.