Garbage truck drivers in Novorossiysk complained about unpaid salaries.
About 150 people who collect garbage from Novorossiysk and Gelendzhik have still not received their salaries for July. The drivers recorded a video message to the President of Russia asking him to take personal control of the situation.
As reported by "Caucasian Knot", the authorities of Kuban, who declared overfilled landfills as temporary waste storage sites, should have organized separate collection and recycling of solid waste and built new landfills without waiting for a crisis, environmentalists pointed out.
Residents of Novorossiysk have repeatedly complained about air pollution after fires at the landfill located on Mount Shchelba. In 2025 alone, the landfill caught fire at least three times, and in two cases, extinguishing took more than a month. In June 2024, the garbage dump in Novorossiysk burned for several days, and in August of the same year, residents again complained about acrid smoke due to a fire at the landfill. In November 2024, it became known that the landfill would be reconstructed, although it needs to be reclaimed.
The garbage truck drivers filed complaints with the prosecutor's office, labor inspection, and the Investigative Committee against their former employers, the companies "SELТ-group" and "Ecovoz". According to the workers, the debt owed to each of them in salaries amounts to 80,000-100,000 rubles, plus various compensations.
The drivers' video message was published by the Telegram channel "Novorossiysk NOT News", which has over 18,000 subscribers. By midnight on November 4, more than 560 users had viewed the video message.
"We, former workers of "Ecovoz" and "SELТ-group", who worked in garbage collection in Novorossiysk and Gelendzhik in the Krasnodar region. There are about 150 of us who have not received our calculated salaries for July 2026," the assembled drivers say in the video.
According to the drivers, all this time they have been contacting the prosecutor's office, labor inspection, and the Investigative Committee; they have all the applications and documents in hand.
"To date, our former employers owe us about 15 million rubles. Most of us have families, children, loans, and debts. We want one thing - to receive our honestly earned money," the garbage truck drivers complained.
In addition to the video message to Putin, the drivers plan to send written applications to the representatives in the Volga and Central districts, at the places of registration of their former employers. They hope to be recognized as victims in the criminal case against unscrupulous entrepreneurs, reports the publication "Novorossiysk Worker".
"I worked honestly, a year without vacation at all. I was not paid for July. The debt amounted to more than 100,000 rubles. Yes, there is a penalty for late payments, something around 0.01% of the amount, but that doesn't make it easier for me. I am a father of four children: two daughters who are schoolgirls, one goes to kindergarten, and my son just turned one year old. So, to gather the older ones for school, I had to take out a loan, and the interest is not as funny as the penalty for late salary payments," one of the drivers said.
Currently, the drivers are employed at a company in the Anapa district, but they are promised that they will soon be officially hired by YRO.
"We wrote applications with an open date twice. So far, nothing. They promise to take everyone, we'll see how it goes. We are not interested in all the management's squabbles. Let us work peacefully and pay us steadily, without delays," the workers stated.
Meanwhile, on November 11, a hearing will take place in the Arbitration Court of the Rostov Region on the lawsuit of "SELТ-Group" against "Southern Regional Operator" for the recovery of debts amounting to more than 15 million rubles. And on December 10, the same court will hold a hearing on the lawsuit of "Ecovoz" for the recovery of debts under the contract for waste transportation services amounting to more than 49 million rubles.
"Caucasian Knot" also reported that the authorities of Kuban decided to introduce a regime of increased readiness in ten municipalities due to the exhaustion of landfill capacity. Local residents, commenting on this decision online, criticized the authorities for the failure of the waste reform and complained about the accumulation of waste and unsanitary conditions due to landfills.