WASTING WASTE: MONGOLIA SLOWLY LEARNS TO LOVE RECYCLING.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 ULAANBAATAR 000603

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

STATE FOR EAP/CM; OES/ENV-H. FINMAN
EPA - INTERNATIONAL FOR M. ENGLE, M. BAILEY
STATE PASS TO AID/ANE FOR D. WINSTON

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: EAID ECON SENV PGOV SOCI BTIO MG
SUBJECT: WASTING WASTE: MONGOLIA SLOWLY LEARNS TO LOVE RECYCLING.

Ref: A) Ulaanbaatar 599, B) 06 Ulaanbaatar 621,

C) Ulaanbaatar 624,

SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - NOT FOR INTERNET DISTRIBUTION.

1.(SBU) SUMMARY: Despite Mongolians' embrace of nature and the
environment as central to their culture, the vast majority of
Mongolia's urban dwellers are still unaware of recycling options
even as urban areas sink under a growing waste disposal crisis and
trash can even be found in a few heretofore pristine steppe areas.
While some Mongolians might have a vague understanding of the
benefits from recycling, very few understand the mechanics, and even
fewer actively participate. Acting almost as a de facto welfare
program, recycling is left to the urban poor waste pickers who
rummage through city trash sites looking for recyclables to pass on
to the handful of accepting companies. With the help of the
Japanese aid agency JICA, the Government of Mongolia (GOM) has
ramped up awareness campaigns and is taking baby steps to encourage
increased recycling. As post notes in its comment, for truly
effective results, however, the GOM must increase outreach and
education efforts, work with local industries, institute
recycling-friendly policies and begin to see recycling, with its
potential for new industries and increased jobs, as a win-win
environmentally, financially, and socially. In this regard,
Mongolia may be a potentially fertile future -- repeat future --
market for U.S. environmental and recycling goods and services. (Ref
A summarizes Mongolia's solid waste problem.) END SUMMARY

Recycling Still a Mystery
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2. (U) It is a sad irony that in Mongolia today there is little
awareness of the benefits of recycling for the environment and the
economy. Mongolians pride themselves on their closeness to nature
and most families have relatives still engaged in herding or were
only urbanized within the past three generations. Some of the
loudest protests against development of the country's mining sector
have centered on its environmentally destructive practices, tarring
all mining operations with the excesses of a few unregulated
artisanal or small scale mining projects (see refs B and C). So
far, few have grasped the idea that protecting the environment
begins at home.


3. (U) According to the Ulaanbaatar's (UB) City Maintenance and
Public Utilities Agency, only about 3.7% of all waste currently
produced by UB is recycled (as opposed to 32% of municipal waste in
the U.S.). If it were not for the efforts of a few hundred urban
poor waste-pickers who scour the city's Ulaanchuluut landfill,
municipal trash containers and the dozen or so illegal dump sites
throughout the city looking to earn bread money, the number would be
closer to zero.


4. (U) For Mongolians, the mechanics of recycling remain a mystery;
there is little knowledge of what items are recyclable, how they
should be separated from non-recyclable trash and where they should
be deposited. Part of the problem is that the concept of recycling
is relatively new to them. Waste management issues fell off the
radar during the economic hardships that befell the country during
its transition to a market-based economy in the early 1990s. The
government's attempts to create a fee based waste collection system
fell into disarray. Recycling was the last thing on most people's
minds.

Recycling Left to Waste Pickers and Chinese Companies
-------------- --------------


5. (U) However, Ulaanbaatar's homeless street children, casualties
of the country's economic transition, became the city's first
recyclers when they started collecting plastic bottles from city
dumps and gutters at the behest of Chinese buyers, who paid them
pennies for their efforts. Scattered trash and street brawls over
bottles and territory became increasingly common.


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6. (U) Eventually Chinese buyers graduated to accepting plastic bags
as well as some paper products. They set up small operations in
Ulaanbaatar to melt down the plastics for export to China, where it
was recycled and used in the manufacture of toys, plastic bags and
bottles, house wares and other plastic-based products. Ironically,
much of this recycled plastic was/is re-exported to Mongolia in
finished form.


7. (U) The recycling scene today in Mongolia still very much
resembles the drudgery of its mid-1990s origins, if only in a
slightly evolved form. Urban poor waste pickers, both children and
adults, now wander the city's landfill and dozen or so illegal dumps
trolling for recyclables. The Ulaanbaatar city government estimates
that some 50 families (up to 200 people) now make their living as
waste pickers, scavenging for plastic, paper, glass and aluminum
recyclables. Fistfights still erupt as families vie for pole
position when waiting for the arrival of dump trucks to the landfill
and children have even been known to jump into dump trucks to pluck
out high value recyclables early before they arrive at the
landfill.


8. (U) Waste pickers pass their daily hauls to the recyclable item
collection kiosks or else to one or more of the 15 recycling
companies in Mongolia. Most are fully or partially Chinese-owned or
else use Chinese equipment that requires Chinese technicians to
operate. The dirtier, hands-on work such as searching out,
collecting and transporting materials, dealing with locals, and
negotiating deals with suppliers is left to Mongolian employees.
According to the Ministry of Environment, the recycling sector
currently employs just 250 persons. Interestingly, two recycling
firms appeared for post's annual Embassy vicinity Earth day
clean-up.

9.(U) One such example is the large toilet paper producing company
Tseverkhen. Chinese-owned and operated, the company employs 10

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Chinese technicians to operate machines and 25 Mongolians to scour
the city looking for paper waste. Because there is no formal
collection system in place and almost zero awareness among the
public on what can be recycled and how, the Mongolian workers must
rummage for paper themselves or else strike deals with waste pickers
or businesses to provide them with recyclable paper, usually for
ridiculously low prices. Newspapers usually fetch 10 tugruk per
kilo (about US$0.01 -- one cent),notebooks and regular white paper
30 tugruk per kilo (UR$0.03). When Tseverkhen employees approached
waste pickers at Ulaanchuluut Landfill about collecting recyclables
for them, they were refused and told that the money offered was not
enough.


10. (U) San Orgui, a Mongolian owned plastic processing company
which makes plastic chairs, benches and lids etc., later struck a
deal with two families at Ulaanchuluut to collect plastic bags and
any other plastic materials on their behalf.

JICA Helps with Recycling Awareness Efforts
--------------


11. (U) In 2004, the Japanese aid agency JICA launched a major waste
management upgrading project in Ulaanbaatar that included a sizable
recycling component. JICA and city officials are aiming to
increase the amount of annually recycled waste from 3.7% to 10% by

2010. This lofty goal is to be achieved through an education drive,
the addition of special weekend recyclable collection routes for
sanitation trucks in various city districts, and the installation of
134 privately operated recycling collection points. JICA also
worked with waste pickers at the Ulaanchuluut landfill to aid them
in removing recyclable from the daily build up of trash at the site.
Unfortunately, JICA's plan to install a recycling plant at the site
for use by waste pickers was never realized. It was later
determined that the presence of waste pickers interfered with
landfill attempts to compact and cover refuse in a timely manner.


12. (U) In 2005 the UB City Maintenance and Public Utilities Agency,
working with JICA, launched a project to encourage people to recycle

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by exchanging such products as soap and plastic bags for recyclable
plastic bottles and jars. Although implementers were forced to stop
the project when it began losing money, the concept of recycling
seemed to stick with those who had participated.


13. (U) Since then, the city has organized similar awareness
campaigns to highlight the importance of recycling and proper waste
disposal. Their message has focused on three primary ideas: 1)
reduce the use of plastic bags, 2) discourage illegal dumping, and,
3) trash fee collection. Posters, key chains and other items
highlighting the benefits of recycling are now ubiquitous in
schools, on public transportation and other public areas. A
month-long reality TV show was recently produced for UBS TV called
"Let's Clean Up Garbage!" News reports and PSA have also appeared on
other TV stations.

GOM Needs to Shift to Action and
Recycling-Friendly Policies
--------------


14. (SBU) COMMENT: While the GOM should be credited for finally
moving to promote the concept of recycling to a wider audience, its
timid forays into recycling awareness campaigns have so far produced
limited results despite being backed by the Japanese, who are
internationally recognized as master-recyclers. Awareness drives
have focused more on the big picture (recycling is good) rather than
on instructing residents on specific day-to-day procedures for
recycling -- what products can be recycled and how to properly
separate their waste. In addition, a confusing and haphazard
recyclable collection system has stymied wider participation.


15. (SBU) If the GOM hopes to achieve greater success, they must
ramp up education efforts, targeting not only schools and television
with ads, but also billboards, radio and newspapers. Despite claims
that there are over 130 recyclable collection points in the city,
they remain mostly invisible. More clearly marked collection
points, more recycle trash bins in restaurants, stores and other
public places could also help increase awareness.


16. (SBU) But education efforts alone will not suffice. The GOM
needs to actively engage industries and encourage the use of
recycled materials, through tax or other incentives - carrots and
sticks. Higher deposit refunds on bottles and cans could be
introduced to support waste pickers and encourage recycling by
others. Subsidies or low cost start up loans could be provided for
companies to start up recycling businesses, or incorporate recycling
into their current operations.


17. (SBU) Finally, thus far the GOM has regarded recycling as just
one small aspect of its larger struggle to control a growing trash
problem. However, there is no indication that the government sees
the other environmental, financial, and social benefits that
recycling brings to the table. Recycling could be a vehicle for new
industries and the creation of jobs in an economy that suffers from
35% unemployment. Research shows that, per ton, sorting and
processing recyclables alone sustains ten times more jobs than
land-filling or incineration. Some recycling-based paper mills and
recycled plastic product manufacturers, for example, employ 60 times
more workers on a per-ton basis than do landfills. When viewed in
these terms, recycling could become a more attractive alternative to
simply sweeping its garbage into a landfill. That said, the
recycling sector is largely empty and open for potential development
by U.S. firms. END COMMENT.

Goldbeck