The Government hopes to reduce wood waste by exporting wood pellets

The Russian Government hopes to reduce the number of wood waste landfills in the country by encouraging exports of wood pellets and briquettes that can be used as biofuel. That was announced by the press office of the RF Government citing Viktoria Abramchenko, Deputy Prime Minister, on Monday.

«One of the measures to support this direction is already being implemented by the Ministry of Industry and Trade that included the production of wood pellets and briquettes in its order on export shipment subsidization. This will undoubtedly contribute to an increase in their production as well as allow enterprises to utilize wood waste and thus significantly reduce the number of landfills in the country. According to expert data, over 25 million m³ of non-recycled wood waste is generated in Russia annually,» the press office quotes Ms. Abramchenko following the results of her business trip to the Arkhangelsk region.

The Deputy Prime Minister emphasized that such support would facilitate zero-waste production in the forest sector. «We are already discussing proposals of relevant bodies for the development of the industry and support measures for enterprises. They include, among other things, preferential lending for recycling projects, expansion of targeted financing of projects in the forest sector by the Industrial Development Fund, as well as subsidized modernization of recycling equipment,» the press office specifies.

The Deputy Prime Minister also noted the need to stimulate demand for domestic forest products in several directions. «First of all, within the ecological approach, we are considering measures promoting the use of biomaterials. For example, paper and cardboard as raw materials for packaging goods. In the days ahead, we will discuss incentive mechanisms at the meeting of the task group on the preparation of the concept of extended producer responsibility (EPR),» the press office quotes Ms. Abramchenko.