Kazakhstan’s Recycling Problem Is Not Lack of Willingness

The Astana Times provides news and information from Kazakhstan and around the world.

Editor’s note: The Astana Times continues a section featuring articles by our readers. As a platform that values diverse perspectives and meaningful conversations, we believe that this section provides space for readers to share their thoughts and insights on various topics that matter to them and the AT audience.

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. The challenge is turning that principle into an everyday routine people can trust.

Incentives can reinforce that routine. Deposit-return systems for bottles and cans, discounts or rewards for recycling, and convenient collection points can give recyclable materials visible value. The objective is not to pay people simply for behaving responsibly. It is to design a system in which throwing valuable materials into a landfill becomes the least attractive option.

Finally, accountability matters. Residents are less likely to spend time separating waste if they suspect everything is mixed together later. Municipalities and waste operators could publish simple data showing how much waste was collected separately, how much was actually recycled and how much went to landfill. Digital tracking, one of the priorities in Kazakhstan’s new waste strategy, could help make those flows more transparent.

Kazakhstan’s new waste policy sets a target of reducing the amount of municipal waste sent to landfills by 10% from the 2025 level by 2030. Meeting targets like this will depend not only on new recycling plants or government strategies, but on millions of small decisions made every day in kitchens, apartment courtyards and workplaces.

The important lesson extends far beyond Kazakhstan. Governments often treat recycling as a question of environmental awareness: educate people, run campaigns and hope for behaviour changes. But awareness works best when infrastructure makes the responsible choice the easy choice.

People should not have to be environmental enthusiasts to recycle. A successful waste system is one in which an ordinary resident can separate a bottle, a cardboard box or food waste without giving the process much thought. That is when recycling stops being an individual effort and starts becoming normal urban infrastructure.

The author is Samat Tulepbayev, a graduate student at the Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Public Policy.  

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of The Astana Times. 

The post Kazakhstan’s Recycling Problem Is Not Lack of Willingness appeared first on The Astana Times.