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Samat Tulepbayev. Photo credit: Samat Tulepbayev’s personal archive. Kazakhstan has entered 2026 with an ambitious new plan for dealing with its waste. The government’s Waste Management Concept for 2026–2030 calls for less landfill disposal, more recycling and better monitoring of where waste ultimately goes.
The timing could hardly be better. In 2025, Kazakhstan collected 4.1 million tonnes of municipal waste — 7.7% more than the year before. The country is producing more waste, and the question is no longer whether recycling matters. It is whether the system makes recycling easy enough for ordinary people to participate.
The central problem is surprisingly simple: Kazakhstan’s waste system still places too much responsibility on individual citizens and too little on the infrastructure surrounding them. I see this problem in Astana. At home, I separate plastic, paper and cans instead of throwing everything into one bin.
But doing so is only the first step. I often have to take recyclable materials myself to private collection points. For someone already motivated to recycle, this is possible. For a family rushing to work, taking children to school and dealing with daily responsibilities, it becomes a lower priority.
This is why telling people to “be more environmentally responsible” will never be enough. Kazakhstan is not starting from zero. Astana already operates a two-fraction collection system separating “dry” materials such as paper, plastic, glass and metal from “wet” waste such as food.
The city has thousands of waste containers and collection sites. Nationally, progress is also visible: 1.5 million tonnes of municipal waste were sorted in 2025, 16.3% more than in 2024. Astana alone accounted for 377,000 tonnes of sorted waste. Yet sorting statistics tell only part of the story.
Waste must be separated correctly, collected separately, transported without being mixed again and eventually reach a recycler that can use it. If any step in that chain fails, a carefully separated plastic bottle may ultimately have the same destination as ordinary household rubbish.
A more effective waste system therefore has to make separation convenient, rewarding and accountable. Convenience comes first. Residents should encounter the same simple system wherever they live: clearly marked containers, consistent colours and straightforward instructions showing what belongs where.
Collection schedules should ensure that separated waste remains separated throughout transportation. Organic waste deserves particular attention because food mixed with paper and other recyclables can contaminate material that might otherwise be reused. Kazakhstan’s Environmental Code already assigns local authorities responsibility for organizing environmentally safe municipal-waste systems, including separate collection.