Russia Plans to Put AI Drones in Charge of Monitoring Waste Landfills
By 2030, Russia aims to hand over routine oversight of all active municipal solid waste landfills to AI-powered drones, replacing sporadic human inspections with continuous aerial monitoring.
Russia is preparing to scale up an experiment that uses drones equipped with artificial intelligence to monitor waste landfills nationwide. The plan, presented at an exhibition of unmanned technologies ahead of a presidential meeting on the development of autonomous transport, would extend drone-based oversight to all operating municipal solid waste landfills by 2030.
At the center of the proposal is the Geoscan quadcopter Geoscan 801, designed specifically for high-resolution photo and video surveys of landfill sites. The drone can fly at altitudes of up to 4,000 meters, operate in both extreme cold and heat, remain airborne for up to 40 minutes, and transmit data over distances of up to 10 kilometers.
Drones Plus Neural Networks
In practice, the system is straightforward. A drone flies over a landfill along a predefined route, capturing detailed imagery of the site. Those images are then processed by AI algorithms that compare fresh data with archived footage, identifying changes that would be easy to miss during one-off inspections.
The neural network is trained to detect specific signs of violations, including waste spreading beyond permitted boundaries, fires and hotspots, smoke, and unauthorized dumping near regulated landfill sites.
From Pilot Projects to Nationwide Coverage
The approach is already being used in parts of Russia. The Russian Environmental Operator has deployed drones to monitor landfills in the Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, and Leningrad regions.
In the Leningrad region, aerial surveys previously helped uncover dozens of illegal dumping sites. In the Moscow region, drones have been used for routine monitoring of active landfills—without sending inspectors into the field.
Constant monitoring instead of raids
The key shift is not just automation, but frequency. Drone-based oversight turns landfill monitoring into a continuous process rather than a series of scheduled site visits. Inspections no longer depend on travel logistics or human availability, and potential violations can be flagged at an early stage, before they escalate.
If the plan moves forward as outlined, by 2030 landfill oversight across Russia will transition from episodic inspections to systematic, AI-driven aerial surveillance. Drones and algorithms will handle the bulk of monitoring, while human inspectors step in only when the system flags a specific issue—reshaping how environmental compliance is enforced on the ground by watching from above.
