Belarusian Natural Resources Ministry, Rosatom discuss cooperation avenues

Andrei Khudyk and Alexey Likhachev discussed a broad range of cooperation avenues in environmental protection and rational use of natural resources. They singled out the most promising projects from the point of view of realization, including studying the possibility of organizing environmentally friendly waste neutralization, including hazardous waste.

The Belarusian natural resources and environmental protection minister and the Rosatom director general exchanged opinions about ways to improve the effectiveness of implementation of Belarus’ and Russia’s international commitments within the framework of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. In particular, Andrei Khudyk shared the experience of realization of the fourth national plan on fulfilling the commitments Belarus has undertaken to realize provisions of the Stockholm Convention.

Apart from that, Andrei Khudyk and Alexey Likhachev discussed the work on liquidating the stockpile of no longer usable pesticides in Belarus. For instance, in the course of implementing an international technical project Belarus destroyed PCB-containing equipment from more than 190 owners. Over 2,000 tonnes of POP-containing waste was moved outside the country and destroyed. Work is in progress to commission a facility for environmentally friendly neutralization of persistent organic pollutants and other kinds of hazardous waste.

At the end of the negotiations Andrei Khudyk and Alexey Likhachev agreed to continue bilateral cooperation in waste management, including the management of hazardous waste.

Cooperation of the Belarusian Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Ministry and the Russian state nuclear industry corporation Rosatom is based on a memorandum of understanding between the ministry and the corporation.