In central Aktobe, residents of five apartment buildings are facing two serious problems at once: overflowing garbage containers and water that floods entrances and ground floors after rain, reports infohub.kz.
In the courtyard of these five buildings, veritable mountains of waste have piled up. Only nine containers are installed on the site, and they are used not only by residents but also by vendors from the neighboring market. According to the residents, it is the traders who bring a significant portion of the garbage: boxes and crates are thrown onto the common heap.
"This market, it takes out 100 boxes every day. 100 boxes every day! I look out the window: they carry them out in stacks like that. They throw them here and there. They have no designated place," says Gaisha Izbassova.
However, the residents themselves are also turning the site into a dump. After the garbage truck left, a deep ditch remained, which has become a favorite spot for bulky waste. The other day, an old mattress was dumped there. A woman who carried it out was caught on video, and the footage was handed to the local police officer, but the mattress remained in place.
Three years ago, new asphalt was laid in the courtyard. Now after rain, the water does not drain away—it comes in, right into the entrances and ground floors.
"It's worse after the asphalt. I've lived here since '85. There was never a time when water came into the entrances. Now it happens constantly. When there were heavy rains in the summer, it was just chaos!" complains Galina Voronova.
The akimat admits that drainage was not included in the project. When the mistake will be corrected is unknown. As for the garbage, they are still proposing not a miracle but negotiations. Vendors were asked to at least cut up the boxes—it didn't help. Now they want to install a separate container for the market.
"We are currently in talks with the management of the 'Tabys' market about them installing an additional container for themselves, so that the complaints from residents of this area decrease," says Miras Azhibayev, head of the housing and utilities department of the akimat of the Astana district of Aktobe.
The most interesting part is that a camera is installed next to the garbage site, which is supposed to identify violators. But so far it has not been of much use. The akimat says that bulky and construction waste is most often brought at night, and in the dark it is impossible to make out faces on the recording.
Earlier we wrote that a garbage scandal erupted in Aktobe over waste removal.