Dnipropetrovsk dump appalls Ukraine
Tons of bread are dumped in the country that once suffered through the Famine GenocideThe Dnipropetrovsk Prosecutor’s Office is investigating a shocking case: a huge bread dump was discovered on the side of the road leading to Kryvy Rih. Thousands of loaves of bread heaped together were found in a young forest near a recently harvested wheat field.
Judging from the dates on packages, the freshly baked bread was brought here in spring, summer, and early fall. Citizens of nearby villages of Krasnopillia and Myrne already got used to feeding cattle, using this free-of-charge supply of bread. People carried home sacks filled with long loaves from the dump until some people whose conscience was still awake invited journalists to come.
The photos published in local newspapers caused a real shock. Ivan Ponochovny, interdistrict prosecutor for environmental issues, saw the bread dump. He could hardly conceal his feelings as he said that this was the first time he had ever seen such a horrible scene.
It is too soon to make any conclusions yet. Bread producers, grocery stores, or public catering enterprises may have had a hand in this. The representatives of the prosecutor’s office took samples of bread from the dump for expertise. Oleksandr Bilenko, head of the regional environment protection legislation department, told The Day that law-enforcement authorities will soon join the investigation of the “bread case.”
After the individuals involved in the removal of the bread to the dump are identified, the question of whether criminal proceedings should be instituted will be considered. Administrative punishment will certainly be applied. Food waste utilization has to comply with the officially established regulations. Bilenko acknowledged that this is quite an unusual case: “The moral side of it all stuns most of all. However, those who did it can be charged with violating, for example, Article 239 ‘Lands Pollution’ of Ukraine’s Criminal Code.
“First, the bread products were removed not to an official dump but were thrown away from a truck somewhere in the woods along the road. Second, the bread was all packed in plastic bags, which remain in ground for a long time and pollute the environment.”
It turns out that there is, unfortunately, no punishment prescribed for this kind of barbarous attitude to bread. Perhaps this should be regulated on the legislative level. From a moral standpoint, it is a real crime to dump bread in this country, which suffered through the Holodomor.
