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The Ukrainian National Waste Management Strategy until 2030 – which aims at curbing the presently critical waste producing and managing practices – was published at the end of 2017. It determines the administrative agenda and the course of waste management, while observing EU directives. It can also fill us with hope, since their deficiencies weigh heavily on us, too.
The Ukrainian economy still employs mostly outdated technologies, which not only produce a considerable amount of waste, but also continually recreate the problem. Its effects can clearly be observed in the environment as well as in the welfare and health of people.
The Ukrainian economy still employs mostly outdated technologies, which not only produce a considerable amount of waste, but also continually recreate the problem. Its effects can clearly be observed in the environment as well as in the welfare and health of people.
Although the Strategy does not use the expression “circular economy”, it emphasizes that waste is a possible secondary raw material reserve. It establishes that both industrial and household waste are produced in great amounts, whereas using secondary raw materials is rare due to the poor waste management infrastructure. The lack of a separate household waste collecting and recovering system means losing millions of tons of secondary raw material every year. Development is crucial for the effective use of natural resources and for converting to a sustainable economy.
The document is of utmost importance to reaching Ukraine’s environmental and economic goals, or as it is stated in the Strategy: “it is the most current strategic objective also for the national policy”. We need to add that this endeavour of our neighbours also concerns us, since the consequences of the state of environment in that region extend beyond borders and reach our waters.
The better part of the produced waste – 94% of the municipal waste – still ends up in one of the 5470 landfills of Ukraine (2016). 305 of those landfills (5.6%) are overladen, and 1646 (30%) do not meet the national requirement. Expert analysis shows that 90% of the Ukrainian landfills fall short of the European standards.
Although the population of the country has been continuously decreasing for twenty years, the amount of household waste keeps increasing. In 2016, it reached 49 million cubic meters (250-300 kg/head/year). Most of that was taken to landfills; in 2016 only 5.8% was recycled in some way.
Industrial waste management is regulated by law in Ukraine. According to the data-collecting system introduced in 2010, the amount of industrial waste decreased from 448 million tons to 312 million tons in the past five years. Most of that is mining waste, but there is also a considerable amount of debris coming from industrial zones and abandoned military establishments.
5 million tons of hazardous waste are generated every year, the storing and processing expenses for which reach 600 million hryvnia (18.6 million €).
The National Waste Management Plan shall be implemented based on the Strategy in three phases until 2030. At first, situation analyses will be carried out, based on which bills and action plans will be formulated. The provisions will be gradually introduced starting from 2019: separated collection in 5000 settlements, 240 trash sorting facilities, 735 recycling plants, 19 waste incinerators, 50 modern landfills, and closing and recultivating all inadequate landfills. Specialised provisions will be introduced for the different waste types, and separated waste collection will be organized. Orientation and instruction of the population and industrial parties will be organised. The implementation will be covered by the yearly budget of central and governmental bodies, as well as by entrepreneurs.
There is reasonable hope that implementing a comprehensive strategy brings a considerable shift in public attitude: with the participation of the population and the industrial parties a new waste management system can be created, the positive effects of which would be felt even at the banks of the Tisza after the supply of waste is cut.
The amount of waste carried by water is very worrying. Instead of precious sediment, the River Tisza brings along all sorts of waste from the Ukrainian and Romanian floodlands. The occasionally contaminated drifting trash causes several million forints in damage; sometimes even water quality protection alerts and damage control are needed. In the spring of 2017, for instances, the Tisza carried along 3500 tons of trash, 70% of which was municipal waste.
End-of-pipe management of the phenomenon and awareness raising have been done for years, and the water supply institutions, public services and environmentalist NGOs (Green Circle, E-misszió) regularly clear the trash floating into Hungary. The crew of the Plastic Cup, organised on a yearly basis since 2013, collected 10 tons of waste this year, which was sorted on the spot and taken mostly to Hungarian recycling companies. GPS surveying of heavily contaminated areas, monitoring polluted river reaches, examining the composition of floodland mud and floating plastic with the help of the laboratory of the Wessling Hungary Ltd. were further initiatives of the organizers of the Plastic Cup (https://petkupa.hu/eng/monitoring.html). The water supply institutions clear the floodlands of considerably more waste every year.
In addition to the clean-up activities, a Clean Subcarpathia environmentalist programme was also started with the cooperation of the Prime Minister’s office in 2017, to call the attention of those living at the riverhead of the Tisza to the consequences of illegal waste dumping. Following the call of the Kárpátaljai Magyar Turisztikai Tanács (KMTT, Subcarpathian Hungarian touristic council) and as part of the Önkéntes Környezetszépítő Mozgalom (volunteer campaign to clean the environment), locals clean up more and more public places, cultural memorials, vicinities of touristic sights, riverbeds and ditches.
In the Subcarpathian region, 3 million tons of waste have accumulated in 200 large, technologically inadequate landfills, and even the hotels – benefiting of prospering tourism – dump their waste at the Tisza. According to aerial photos, the valley of the river is one of the most polluted areas. At present, there is no efficient waste collecting system, and safe disposal is not even an option due to the lack of infrastructure. Ignorance, lack of unified measures and law evasion are universally present. Waste accumulation therefore also endangers the health of locals.
Solving that issue requires investigating and implementing other counties’ available and feasible good practices as well as finding appropriate partners, and these are some of the goals of the Waste Management 2018 expo, which will be organized in Kiev on 2-3 October, 2018 (http://wm-expo.com/). The Hungarian Association of Environmental Enterprises (HAEE), the Plastic Cup and the Clean Subcarpathia programme will participate in the expo with an exhibition booth and a presentation. Our goal there will be to explore the possibilities of professional collaboration on waste management and awareness raising, to present the (technological and organisational) potential of the Hungarian environmental industry, and thus promote the establishment and operation of a Ukrainian waste management system by principle of geographical proximity and to our common benefit.
To further those goals, the Third Round Table for a Cleaner Tisza will be organised on 18-19 October in Visk, Ukraine. Its Ukrainian and Hungarian participants will discuss: the possibilities of the regional implementation of the Ukrainian waste management strategy, the illegal waste dumping and the prevention of the pollution of the Tisza. The organisation of the Expo and the Round Table will be supported by the Ministerial Commissioner for the Development of Transcarpathia and the Carpathian Basin Nursery School Development Program, and by the Bethlen Gábor Fund.
On 19-20 October, a volunteer clean-up action, organised by the Clean Subcarpathia and co- organised by local and regional governments and NGOs, will mark the end of the Ukrainian environmentalist and waste management programmes.
Hungarian Association of Environmental Enterprises (HAEE)
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