Today, during the press conference at the press center of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Minister of Energy Kanat Bozumbayev spoke about the ongoing work in the field of environmental protection.

As Kanat Bozumbayev noted, according to the results of 2017, emissions of industrial enterprises into the environment amounted to 2.3 million tons, for waste discharges — 1.1 million tons. In the sphere of waste management, the share of recycled and utilized industrial waste amounted to 30.9% (in 2016 – 26.8%).

"The share of recycled and utilized solid household waste amounted to 9%. Here we have very good progress. In 2016, this share was 2.6%. That is, the increase is more than three times," the Minister of Energy said.

69% of the country's population is provided with the services for collecting and exporting expenses (in 2016 – 64%). The share of polygons corresponding to environmental requirements and sanitary standards is 16%.

The concept for the transition to a green economy set the following target indicators: to increase the share of waste processing to 40% by 2020, and 50% by 2050. 100% provision of the population with the export of solid waste – by 2030, 95% of the landfills for 2030 should comply with environmental requirements and sanitary rules.

Kanat Bozumbayev also said that the ministry plans to develop a new version of the Environmental Code. This measure will help bring environmental legislation to OECD standards, stimulate nature users to introduce "green" technologies.

"We invite all interested participants in the form of non-governmental organizations, environmentalists, the public and international experts help develop the Code in 2018. By December 2018, we plan to enter the government with the already condemned new Environmental Code. The Draft Code is planned to be submitted to the Parliament in December 2019," said Kanat Bozumbayev.

In addition, this year, together with the akimats, work continues on improving regulatory legal acts to create favorable conditions for small and medium businesses in:

• the introduction of separate collection, sorting and processing of waste with the involvement of private investment, reducing the volume of buried waste;
• providing the population with garbage disposal;
• optimization of the number of polygons and dumps;
• information work with agitation of the population to separate collection.