VTOMAR design programme, 1979–85

Developed by the Leningrad branch of VNIITE, VTOMAR (vtorsyr’ye material’nyye resursy , or ‘recyclable material resources’) was a design programme with the objective of improving systems for collecting and transporting reusable waste from households and institutions. The programme was supervised by designer Andrei Meshchaninov (1940-2013), the team included Dmitry Kochugov, Tatiana Pavlova, L. Kulagina, A. Lobanov and A. Vodzianovsky.
The project’s design goals included the creation of an integrated system of specialized collection and transportation equipment, the provision of appropriate workers’ uniforms, and the implementation of an awareness campaign to promote this new socially encouraged behaviour. The designers employed scenario modelling techniques to devise a system of household bins (free of charge) that would turn waste-sorting into an automatic habit of daily life. In 1986, an experiment was initiated in the city of Bălţi in the Moldovan SSR with the objective of trialling several elements of the VTOMAR programme. Various types of containers for the collection of household waste paper were distributed among local residents. However, the experiment was terminated in 1987, coinciding with the advent of perestroika.