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DE RUEHUM #0603/01 2950835
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FM AMEMBASSY ULAANBAATAR
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INFO RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 5810
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 2692
RUEHUL/AMEMBASSY SEOUL 2987
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RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHDC
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RUEHLMC/MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE CORP WASHINGTON DC 0751

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 
--------------------------- 
 
¶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. 
 
 
ULAANBAATA 00000603  002 OF 003 
 
 
¶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 
 
SIPDIS 
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 
 
ULAANBAATA 00000603  003 OF 003 
 
 
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