A piece by Olga Masyutina and Ekaterina Paustyan on the waste management system in Russia appeared in the latest issue of Russland-Analysen. The problem of household waste is one of the numerous environmental challenges that Russia faces today. The 2019 nation-wide waste management reform is designed to tackle this problem by promoting waste recycling. However, the reform is stalling largely due to the nature of state-business relations in Russia. The lack of transparency in the public procurement process and importance of personal connections between businesses and the federal and regional authorities undermine the implementation of the reform and produce suboptimal outcomes in the fight against the waste problem.