Waste management in Russia refers to the legislation, actions and processes pertaining to the management of the various waste types encountered throughout the Russian Federation. The basis of legal governance for waste management in Russia at the federal level is outlined through Federal Law No. 89-FZ, which defines waste as “the remains of raw materials, materials, semi-finished products, other articles or products that have been formed in the process of production or consumption as well as the goods (products) that have lost their consumer properties”. Throughout its existence, the government of the Soviet Union introduced state-wide legislative frameworks and recycling programs for effective waste management in the pursuit of a circular economy to reduce new material production. However, the dissolution of the Soviet Union consequently erased these initiatives, yielding the onset of a Post-Soviet Russia largely dependent upon landfills for waste management. In 2019, almost 70 million tons of municipal solid waste was produced in Russia, with over 90% of this amount being deposited in landfills. The Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resource Usage stated in the same year that landfills in Russia occupied an area roughly equivalent to the size of the Netherlands. In line with growing political and social pressures attributed primarily to the inadequate management of municipal solid waste across the country in the past two decades, the Government of Russia introduced widespread rubbish reforms in 2018 under the National Project on Ecology, which contains the country's roadmap for achieving a municipal solid waste recycling rate of 36% by 2024. History Soviet Union (1922 – 1991) Enacting large-scale industrial production was a central focus of the government of the Soviet Union. To maximally preserve the supply of raw materials, the reuse of new products was heavily emphasized through the establishment of state-run organizations that provided collection services. Widescale recycling programs were introduced by the Soviet government in the 1970s, whereby recyclable materials were sorted into five distinct categories: “waste paper, polymeric materials, tires, textiles, and broken glass”. Consequently, it is estimated that almost 30% of total paper and 45% of all glass bottles produced were recycled throughout the 1980s. Consumer goods did not feature materials as plastic, aluminum and tin throughout the vast majority of the Soviet Union's existence, although these were common in other global markets. In 1986, the government of the Soviet Union introduced the concept of extended producer responsibility within the state to