"Putin’s Inner Circle Corners $30Bln Garbage Reform Market"

Why do these mafia types always seem to gravitate to garbage?*
From The Moscow Times:

President Vladimir Putin’s close associates are the biggest beneficiaries of the country’s 2 trillion ruble ($28.7 billion) waste disposal reforms, according to an analysis of contracts by Russia’s Important Stories investigative website published Thursday.

Companies linked to close Putin associates Sergei Chemezov, Arkady Rotenberg and Yury Kovalchuk, as well as former prosecutor general Igor Chaika, have reportedly cornered one-quarter of the market. They have scored state contracts totaling 423 billion rubles ($6 billion) to collect garbage across the country, Important Stories reported.

Chemezov, Putin’s former KGB colleague, was said to be the beneficiary of 165 billion rubles ($2.4 billion) in awarded contracts through companies owned by the state industrial conglomerate Rostec which he heads....

....MORE 

*See for example:
Talkin' Trash and Makin' Cash: Crime and Illegal Landfills in Scotland
Why the Mafia Loves Garbage
Talking Trash and Making Cash: FT Alphaville On The Garbage Beat 

....The "Talking Trash...." formulation is not original to me.
I first heard it from a mafia guy years ago as he was pitching the remunerative opportunities I would be afforded by portfolio or direct exposure to the municipal solid waste removal businesses serving the City of New York.

For folks looking for the philosophical underpinnings of waste we have on offer "Waste and Recycling: 'In the flow of things'" which links to the indispensable Discard Studies....