Where to complain if they don't take out the garbage in the yard

20.01.2021

Every city faces the problem of garbage cans overloaded with household waste and sitting for weeks. The spread of an unpleasant odor has a negative impact on residents. This article will help you figure out where to go if your regional operator does not collect garbage.

A person has the right to count on a favorable environment; this is stated in the Constitution of the Russian Federation. The order and cleanliness of local areas affects the quality of life, because our children, animals, and ourselves walk in the yards. Resolution No. 170 of the State Committee for Construction of the Russian Federation “On approval of the Rules and Standards for the Technical Operation of Housing Stock” establishes the daily collection and removal of household waste from bins located in the courtyards of apartment buildings . If the law is not observed, residents have the right to file a complaint with regulatory authorities to restore order within the management company.

How often should garbage be collected?

The operation of various enterprises that remove municipal solid waste is regulated by local authorities. They are the ones who decide how many times a month the garbage should be removed and set certain standards. All possible standards are established by the local administration regarding:

the rights to use benefits for various groups of residents;
formation of tariffs for waste removal services;
regularity of MSW removal.

Regulations for the private sector, residential apartment complexes, shops and social organizations (hospitals, educational institutions) vary significantly.

Standard standards for regular cleaning, applied in various regions of the country:

Solid waste is removed in the summer; 1 per day;
in winter at least once every 3 days;
deferment is possible in summer - for 1 day, in winter - for 2.

Appendix 1 to PP No. 354 establishes the legal order of the above norms.

Right to cleanliness

Every year, the area of landfills increases by 4,000 m2, because 95% of all waste is stored rather than recycled or incinerated. The removal and processing of municipal solid waste (MSW) is regulated by Federal Law No. 89 “On production and consumption waste” dated June 24, 1998 (https://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_19109/). The removal of MSW is carried out by a rector who is elected every 10 years. For this purpose, regional executive authorities hold an open competition. Based on its results, an Agreement is concluded between the winner and the leadership of the region.

For each region or city of federal significance, 1 or more regional operators are allocated, depending on the decision of local executive authorities.

It is interesting that as a result of changes made to Federal Law No. 89, the Russian Federation should have new waste processing plants to solve the problem of separate waste collection.

In the fall of 2021, the Government of the Russian Federation published a sample contract (https://www.garant.ru/products/ipo/prime/doc/71440160/) for the provision of MSW removal services. Each home owner must conclude such an agreement with the regional operator. For evading this, starting from 2021, a set of administrative measures is provided under Article 8.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation. In addition, the agreement concluded with homeowners falls under Article 426 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation on the “Public Agreement”. From the moment of the first removal of MSW, the owner is automatically considered to have signed such an agreement.

If you live in an apartment building, an agreement for the provision of solid waste removal services must be concluded for you by representatives of the management company, homeowners' association or housing cooperative (MC/ HOA/ LCD).

Where to go if you don't pick up your trash?

Let's look at where you can complain in a situation where the garbage is not taken out periodically. The export of garbage and household municipal waste is carried out by a management company; this is regulated by Russian legislation. The organization is obliged to control the collection and removal of waste to special city landfills on time. Each company establishes a work schedule that it strictly adheres to. In situations where garbage cans are not emptied on time and mountains are growing in size and being blown away by the wind, you should file a complaint with the authorities overseeing the process. Claims that garbage is not collected are accepted:

administration;
management company;
Department of Housing and Communal Services;
state housing inspection;
Rospotrebnadzor;
by the prosecutor's office.

The time period for consideration of a claim directly depends on which authorities to complain to if the garbage is not removed.

What to do if there is a garbage dump near your house

Current sanitary rules prohibit storing household and industrial waste near residential buildings. Landfills are dangerous to human health. Rodents live in accumulated garbage and spread infections. When heated, chemical reactions begin and toxic substances are released into the air and ground. The location of landfills is approved by regional governments.

If a garbage dump has formed near your house, you need to inform the Criminal Code. Service organizations enter into contracts for the removal of solid waste from residential areas and monitor the work of waste removal companies. Failure to fulfill the contract entails punishment.

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When the management company does not respond to a message, you can contact the district administration where the problem arose.

Responsibility of the regional operator

The regional operator's responsibility to residents appears when an agreement is signed. Owners of private houses enter into contracts on an individual basis. A complaint against a regional operator can be written if:

garbage is collected in one container, there is no separate waste collection;
the number of tanks is insufficient;
the operator’s prices have been reduced, but the payment on the receipt has not changed;
solid waste removal is irregular; Containers are inconveniently located.

The lack of containers for separate collection is a common reason. Residents collect garbage in separate bins, but the garbage truck throws everything into one pile. Complaints are answered that waste is sorted at the appropriate stations, but this is not easy to confirm. A quick check on the completion of sorting is possible by writing a complaint against the registrar to the prosecutor's office. A complaint to a regional operator about negligent work is written in free form. The applicant’s personal information is indicated and it is advisable to attach a video recording that proves violations. The video should be shot in front of a large number of witnesses. This encourages harsher punishment. It is useless to complain if the residents of the house throw away large household appliances and furniture. An additional contract is required for the disposal of such waste.

What violations may occur on the part of the operator

Failure to comply with the operator's functional obligations is classified as failure to fulfill the terms of the contract between the company and the service consumer. Most often, problems arise in the following cases:

deliberate overestimation of tariff indicators - these coefficients are determined by local authorities. By law, current tariffs must be on the official website of the regional entity. Often service companies deliberately inflate them;
The time frame for waste removal has been violated. The time period during which garbage must be removed is regulated by regulatory documents and is tied to the seasonality factor. So, in the winter season it is enough to remove solid waste twice a week, in the summer this should be done daily;
non-compliance with the rules of waste sorting, when all waste is dumped into a common container. Sometimes this occurs due to the lack of tanks for the intended purpose, but most often such facts are the result of the negligence of the operator’s employees. Sorting work is an integral part of the contract, and their absence is interpreted as non-fulfillment, although payment for this is taken from residents.

Complaint to the administration

When regular cleaning and waste removal is not maintained, residents have the right to write a complaint to the city administration. The claim must be accompanied by photographs taken in advance, which will confirm the fact of the violation. The photographs must include: a house; area; streets; sidewalks.

Be sure to include information about yourself, the management company and the person responsible for the export in the complaint. There are three ways to submit a claim to the city administration:

through registration at the reception;
sending by letter using the services of Russian Post;
personally hand over to the management, having previously made an appointment with the secretary.

A collective complaint against a company engaged in cleaning and removal of household waste, unlike an individual one, will bring better results and will be considered much faster.

Housing inspection

When utility workers do not remove garbage every day, with regular payments, and complaints remain unanswered, this most often contributes to misunderstanding and huge landfills in the courtyards of residential areas. The Moscow State Housing Inspectorate is a special governing body created to prevent such violations of order. The state website of the housing inspectorate accepts applications for untimely removal of solid waste and has useful information:

about the list of responsibilities for the management company;
on the rights of owners of residential apartment buildings in relation to general purpose property;
about major repairs;
on standards for redevelopment in apartments.

The Housing Inspectorate accepts all citizens. The claim is drawn up in free form, indicating the offenses, photographs, videos, and collective signatures. Complaints are accepted electronically and by registered mail. Personal meetings on visiting days are also possible. After registering the application, the authorized person meets at the address indicated in the complaint with utility workers and residents of the house, draws up a protocol with the formation of the fact of violation, deadlines for elimination and the imposition of sanctions for untimely execution of the prescribed. The legislation provides for a fine for legal entities for untimely garbage collection from 10 to 20 thousand rubles.

Department of Housing and Communal Services

Let's consider what a resident of an apartment building should do when the garbage is not taken out on a regular basis. The Department of Housing and Communal Services is a government body that has the right to consider claims and complaints about the negligent attitude of management companies. The responsibilities of the Housing and Communal Services Department include taking care of the cleanliness of the city, region and nearby settlements. You can submit a claim through:

government portal in electronic form;
sent letter using Russian Post;
personal reception of management, by pre-registration.

An online application involves filling out the applicant’s feedback form. Information is also required about the organization involved in waste removal and management. A couple of good photographs of offenses will complement the claim.

Regulatory framework for complaints

When describing your claim, use the provisions of current legislation, namely:

housing code of the Russian Federation;
Federal Law No. 89 dated June 24, 1998, as amended in 2021;
Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated November 12, 2016 No. 1156;
Article 8.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation;
SanPiN 2-128-4690-88 “Sanitary rules for the maintenance of populated areas.”
Appendix No. 1 of Government Decree No. 354 dated May 6, 2011, as amended on February 27, 2017.

The housing and communal services sector is one of the most painful for citizens. Proving you are right here is a long and difficult job. To avoid wasting time, use the tips described. Don't tolerate your rights being violated for weeks. If they have to take out the garbage, then they will do it.

Departments of territorial administration of Rospotrebnadzor

A special state body, Rospotrebnadzor, is responsible for monitoring compliance with legislation in the field of citizens’ livelihoods. When the garbage is not taken out, but receipts are received, the resident of the house has the right to turn to the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection for help. Applications are accepted:

by calling the hotline;
on the official portal in the form of an electronic application;
registration of the application during a personal meeting with management.

After receiving the complaint, an inspection is scheduled followed by an order.

Garbage has become politics

The problem of waste removal and disposal in Russia is still not resolved and is regularly accompanied by high-profile scandals and corruption stories. According to expert estimates, more than 70 million tons of municipal solid waste are generated annually throughout the country. Most of it is sent to landfills and landfills without preliminary sorting and neutralization, and only 3–5% of waste is processed and returned to industrial circulation. As a result, the total mass of waste accumulated in landfills reached 30 billion tons. MSW landfills and landfills occupy 4 million hectares of Russian territory and their area increases by 0.3 million hectares every year. According to some data, today there are more than 22 thousand unauthorized landfills in the Russian Federation.

Sergey Lantyukhov/NEWS.ru

The garbage problem, due to its scale, quickly moved into the category of socio-political ones. In such a situation, the authorities are forced not only to suppress pockets of popular indignation, but also to invest in the development of a system that will become an effective means of solving the problem, political scientist Sergei Zhuravsky expressed his opinion in a conversation with NEWS.ru.

“This is a reasonable step that can become part of a larger program to restore order in such a criminalized waste area , ” the expert said.

One of the most resonant conflicts between the local population and the authorities occurred around the Yadrovo training ground in Volokolamsk. In March 2021, more than 240 people sought medical attention due to poisoning from landfill fumes, and almost 60 children from different schools suffered from hydrogen sulfide poisoning and were hospitalized. On April 1, 2021, residents of Volokolamsk held the largest rally in the Moscow region - about 7,000 people took part in it. Later, mass rallies took place in Klin, Kolomna, Serpukhov, Orekhovo-Zuevo, Voskresensk, Noginsk, Podolsk, Naro-Fominsk, Solnechnogorsk and other settlements of the Moscow region.

Another, no less loud scandal was associated with the construction of a landfill near the Shies railway station in the Arkhangelsk region - it was planned to import waste from the Russian capital there. As a result, it came to large-scale protests and clashes between environmental activists and workers at the scandalous construction site. Later, under pressure from the population, local authorities were forced to abandon the project.

Experts admit: since about the 90s, Russians have been reaping the fruits of inaction in the “garbage” sector on the part of the state, which at that time actually withdrew from solving this problem. As Oleg Ivanov, head of the Center for Resolving Social Conflicts, explained to NEWS.ru, today the state is actively returning to this area, trying to restore order in it. In particular, the president instructed the government to remove all open dumps within urban areas in the coming years.

As for the innovative system of control over waste removal, the important thing here is that it will allow us to understand what kind of waste is stored where and where it is transported, and to control, including the legality of the actions of local operators. For example, a regional operator in the Vladimir region collected money from citizens for garbage removal, but did not perform some of the work that was included in the price - the waste was transported directly to the landfill, bypassing the waste transfer station , said Ivanov.

Now, he confirmed, such things can be tracked because most garbage trucks have GPS sensors installed. The new centralized system will make it possible to combine and visualize this data on a common map, accessible to the relevant control and supervisory authorities, the expert emphasized.

Prosecutor's office

If complaints to the management company or the housing inspection do not produce any results, then the last authority that will help restore order is the prosecutor’s office. Statements from citizens regarding violations of rights are accepted by the district prosecutor's office. An important point is to attach an application with a mark of acceptance into the management company. This will confirm your words about the awareness of utility workers and inaction. Employees of the prosecutor's office will assist in completing the application. An important fact in addition to the application will be dated photographs and signatures of residents. The prosecutor's office will oblige utility workers to restore order. Otherwise, they face administrative liability.

Appeal procedure

The procedure for filing a complaint is as follows:

determination of a higher authority;
drawing up a written complaint;
provision of evidence base;
waiting for notification of the decision of the regulatory authority;
if there is no result, an appeal to a higher authority structure.

When is it appropriate to file a complaint?

Irregular waste removal serves as a sign of poor quality work by the management company with which the contract was signed. If there is a delay of 2 days, do not panic. Rospotrebnadzor has established rules for the collection of solid waste in sub-zero temperatures. Now, according to the innovations, cleaning occurs once every 3 days. At temperatures above -5C – once every 2 days. Before the innovations, cleaning was carried out every day. Therefore, a 2-day delay in removal does not give rise to a complaint. The actions of the management company comply with the legislation of the Russian Federation.

What to write in a complaint

A complaint about garbage not being removed must be written according to the following form. In the upper right part, indicate the organization you are applying to. Write personal information about yourself, passport details (full name). In the center of the sheet, write “Complaint” with a capital letter. Below is the text of the complaint. Violations are clearly indicated. Required points:

the number from which garbage is not collected;
period of time;
exact address of an apartment or private building;
The location of trash cans is clearly indicated.

A response to a complaint will be received within 1 month. If the claim is sent directly to the management company – 10 days.