MOSCOW (AP) — Protesters have rallied in more than a dozen Russian cities and towns against waste management plans that foresee Moscow sending its trash to poorer — and often pristine — northern areas.

The protests Sunday ranged from a few dozen people up to 1,000 in regions from northwest Russia to Siberia. The biggest rallies were held in the Arkhangelsk region, north of Moscow on the White Sea, protesting plans by authorities to accept trash from Moscow.

The first major trash protests took place outside Moscow last winter, when several children were hospitalized with poisoning linked to a local landfill. Authorities have vowed to introduce trash separation and tackle the issue of the overflowing, poisonous landfills that ring Moscow.

Moscow has recently decided to ship some of its trash to Russia's remote, pristine northwest.