Today, environmental policy can no longer be limited to issues of waste removal, disposal, and utilization. A fundamentally different economic approach is gradually taking shape in the world: what yesterday was considered waste and an environmental problem is today regarded as a resource capable of re-entering the production cycle.

For Kazakhstan, the transition to a circular economy should mean not another adjustment to the waste management system, but a change in the very legal and economic logic.

The key question is what we see before us – waste that must be gotten rid of, or secondary resources that must be returned to economic circulation?

In my view, state policy must begin precisely with a change in this approach.

FROM WASTE REGULATION TO RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

The current system is largely built around the concept of "waste." This very concept sets the corresponding model of behavior: it has been generated – collect it, remove it, dispose of it, neutralize it, or process it.

The circular economy proposes a different model. Material, after completing its initial production or consumption cycle, must be assessed primarily from the standpoint of the possibility of its reuse. Metal, plastic, glass, rubber, construction materials, certain industrial residues, and accumulated technogenic materials can and should become the raw material base for new production.

Therefore, Kazakhstan needs to consistently move from waste legislation to legislation on secondary resources.

This is not about a simple replacement of terminology. A change in the legal status of such materials will entail changes in economic incentives, tax mechanisms, requirements for enterprises, the public procurement system, technical standards, and investment policy.

KAZAKHSTAN NEEDS A LAW ON THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY

At the next stage, it is necessary to consider the development and adoption of a standalone Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan "On the Circular Economy."

Such a law could form a unified legal architecture for the new economic model.

It must define the concepts of secondary resource and secondary raw material, establish the principles for their involvement in economic circulation, create mechanisms to incentivize the processing and reuse of materials, determine the responsibility of market participants, and enshrine state priorities in this area.

It is also necessary to establish requirements for the use of secondary raw materials in certain types of products and in construction, form a system of national standards, and ensure the development of a market for recycled materials.

Today, one of the key problems is that processing enterprises can produce goods but then face the question of how to sell them. Therefore, the state must create not only processing capacities but also a market for secondary raw materials and products made from them.

The circular economy is not a single processing plant. It is an entire system: legislation, standards, collection and sorting infrastructure, logistics, processing, the sales market, public procurement, digital accounting, and control.

A SINGLE STATE CENTER OF RESPONSIBILITY

There is another fundamental question. If Kazakhstan genuinely intends to create a new sector of the economy, this sector must have a state body responsible for results.

Today, issues of waste, processing, industry, ecology, municipal infrastructure, technical regulation, and investment fall under various spheres of public administration.
As a result, responsibility inevitably ends up distributed among several agencies.

Therefore, it is necessary to consider the creation of a separate state body for the management of secondary resources – a specialized agency, a committee with special powers, or, in the longer term, an independent ministry.

Its task should not be administering garbage, but shaping a new raw material policy for the state.

Such a body could maintain a unified balance of the generation and use of secondary resources, coordinate the creation of processing capacities, form the market for secondary raw materials, ensure interagency cooperation, and monitor actual processing.

Accumulated technogenic materials and industrial formations require particular attention.

Contracts for their processing must be accompanied by specific obligations regarding the start dates of work, investment volumes, and actual processing. It is unacceptable for a situation to arise where the right to develop a technogenic site has been obtained but further activity is postponed for years in anticipation of an investor.

The state needs significantly more transparent and rigorous control over the entire chain of movement of secondary resources – from the point of generation to final use.

SECONDARY RESOURCES – A NEW RAW MATERIAL BASE FOR THE COUNTRY

Kazakhstan is traditionally perceived as a state possessing significant reserves of natural resources.

But the economy of the 21st century requires learning to count as a resource not only what is extracted from the subsoil.

Enormous economic potential already lies within our economy – in materials that were once extracted, processed, and used, and today are often considered waste.

Returning these materials to economic circulation means reducing the burden on landfills, lowering the need for primary raw materials, creating new enterprises and jobs, developing technologies, and forming a new industrial sector.

That is precisely why the circular economy must be viewed not only as an environmental program.

It is an industrial, investment, and economic policy of the state.

Today, Kazakhstan has the opportunity not simply to improve the waste management system but to form an entirely new sector – the sector of secondary resource management.

This requires a political decision, a new law, a single state center of responsibility, and clear economic rules.

We must stop viewing used material exclusively as waste.

Waste ends where the state begins to see a resource. And that, in my view, is where the circular economy of Kazakhstan must begin.

Vladimir MARTEL,
lawyer, public figure, and politician