Vladimir Putin's war on garbage is a battle to stay in power

Natalya Syrovyatkina says she's never been part of a protest before, but deep in a forest 60 miles east of Moscow she's now ready to fight to the death.

"We're waiting for them," said the 41-year-old nurse and mother of two. "I'll do everything. Let them kill me."

Syrovyatkina is one of a group of 7,000 local residents trying to halt the construction of a sprawling plant that will process garbage from Europe's largest capital city. The most hard-core have been there 24 hours a day since March, first sleeping in cars and more recently camping among the trees.

The trouble for Russian President Vladimir Putin is that what may look like a run-of-the-mill show of anger has taken on far wider significance. Indeed, trash has turned into a lightning rod for discontent and an unlikely test of his durability as leader.

Public anger over pollution from mountains of waste piled up on the outskirts of Moscow and farther afield has added to a sense among ordinary Russians that they are being ignored by the government. There have also been health care cuts, a rise in the pension age and falling incomes that have led to lower living standards. Putin's popularity, traditionally unassailable, has already hit its lowest level in more than a decade this year.

"For many people, rubbish is more important than democratic rights," said Tatiana Stanovaya, a political analyst and nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Moscow Center. "Quality of life is now a top priority. If the population sees that officials won't listen, then social dissatisfaction will boil over into politics and threaten the system."

It has not been a great few months for the Kremlin. There were demonstrations over opposition candidates being barred from Sept. 8 municipal elections that brought 60,000 people onto the streets at their peak. After widespread outrage over a prison sentence for an actor arrested during a protest last month, prosecutors reversed course and appealed for leniency.

The Russian government is trying to defuse the unrest with an ambitious waste treatment and recycling plan between now and 2024. That's the year Putin is expected to try to stay in power after his term limit ends. Russia now recycles only 1% of its refuse, compared with almost half in the European Union. The rest is mostly buried in landfills. The nationwide goal is to reach 36% recycling by 2024, achieving in five years what has taken several decades in Europe.

Even if the government does achieve its recycling target, "you still end up with 64% of trash," said Alexander Ivannikov, a former waste management specialist at Greenpeace Russia. "Where will it go? Most likely it will be incinerated. That means air pollution and inflamed social tensions."

Protesters like Syrovyatkina are part of a nationwide campaign against the policy for dealing with mounting trash. They say they don't trust the government to build environmentally friendly facilities and have endured police beatings and arrests to champion their cause.

The authorities expect protests to escalate as they establish 220 new garbage plants in Russia, according to a person familiar with the Kremlin's thinking. About $4.5 billion of state and private funds will be required for their construction, said Denis Butsayev, head of the Russian Environmental Operator, the state-run company responsible for the refuse program.

He dismissed any notion they would contribute to pollution. "We have some of the strictest sanitary rules in the world," Butsayev.

Moscow, with its population of almost 13 million, is the biggest culprit. The capital and surrounding province account for 17% of the waste produced each year. Recycling is available to only 11% of its inhabitants, according to a Greenpeace survey.

Syrovyatkina, whose husband is a former policeman and who used to vote for the governing party, is one of the volunteers who maintain a 24-hour presence at a small tent camp near the proposed construction site in the forest.

Over the summer there were several standoffs, including when workers escorted by police came with heavy equipment to clear a path through the forest. In one incident, Syrovyatkina says she was hospitalized and had to take 21 days' sick leave after a worker hit her in the face. She earns a basic monthly salary of $310 working for a state hospital.