Ukraine overflowing with garbage

Ukraine is more at risk from garbage than political crises. It is a monster with a thousand faces formed by the world’s leading labels and brands. To realize the scope of this problem, you don’t have to consult an ecology textbook that reads, “A huge amount of garbage has accumulated in Ukraine, some 20 billion tons of industrial and about 5 billion tons of household waste (weighing approximately one billion tons) — in other words, roughly 500 kg per capita.” All you have to do is walk outside to see garbage everywhere, in and around Dumpsters, on lawns and sidewalks — literally everywhere.

WHO NEEDS GARBAGE?

The struggle with garbage began with the adoption of the Law of Ukraine “On Waste Management” in 1992, but the problem remains, gaining in size and scope. Various projects, conferences, and hearings are undertaken, but according to Olha Masliukivska, a senior lecturer at the Department of Ecology at National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, “we don’t have a comprehensive waste management program that starts long before this waste is produced.”

There is a well-known saying: it is easier to prevent a disease than to treat it. Ukraine needs a policy aimed at reducing the use of various materials made from raw materials (a resource-saving policy), so that packaging can be either recycled or made from secondary raw materials. There must also be repeated usage of certain elements, like refillable cartridges. At the consumption stage we can purchase a two-liter plastic bottle of water or juice rather than a 1.5 liter bottle. Various ecological centers and civic organizations support this comprehensive approach.

According to Vasyl Holiuha, the head of a department that regulates environmental use at the State Directorate for Environmental Protection in Kyiv oblast, “the picture is the same in Kyiv oblast as elsewhere in Ukraine. Our oblast produces some 1.5 million tons of solid household waste. We don’t have a single solid waste processing/ recycling plant. There is no sorting. Initial garbage sorting is very inadequate in our oblast and everywhere else in Ukraine, the kind of sorting any housewife should do in her kitchen.”

EUROPE’S EXPERIENCE

In order to disarm our garbage monster we have to change people’s mentality and teach our citizens to sort their garbage by using so-called fractions-separating dry garbage from wet. Various separate collection systems are used throughout the world.

Garbage is divided into 34 fractions in Japan and five fractions in Germany. Ukraine is planning to institute three fractions. A separate sorting system has been introduced by the innovative company Hrinko in Kyiv’s Pechersk district, which is based on 607 ZhEKs (local housing authorities). “We installed 46 Dumpsters for sorted garbage, and they are being used by 14,000 residents in Pechersk. They are emptied by a special garbage truck. The garbage is then delivered to the Hrinko Company’s sorting complex, where garbage slated for recycling is collected. The rest is dumped and/or sent to the waste disposal plant,” said Hanna Tarantsova, Hrinko’s project and program manager.

The Hrinko Company has plans for instituting selective waste collection by using three fractions (dry, wet, and glass), in the Pechersk, Podil, Holosiieve, and Darnytsia districts of Kyiv. In addition, the company will replace its current garbage containers with Dzvin-type ones that have lids, so that dry waste can be protected from rain and snow. These containers can also be placed on lawns. “We want to buy these containers as soon as possible and show people that using them is the right thing to do. Yes, they cost more (one container costs between 6,000 and 7,000 hryvnias, depending on its material and size, ranging from 1.3 to 5.0 m?,” Tarantsova said.

Another company’s innovative idea is to equip all garbage trucks with GPS sensors, so that each vehicle can be monitored. According to Tarantsova, “Our Fleet Management system, which uses GPS and Web technologies, allows us to work in optimal mode by using the shortest possible routes. This system allows us to monitor our truck drivers and make sure that a garbage truck has dumped its load on a legitimate rather than unauthorized dump.”

Holiuha also complains about unauthorized dumps: “Dump no. 5 was shut down in 2003, and this led to unauthorized dumping of garbage in Kyiv’s suburbs and elsewhere in Kyiv oblast — in forests, fields, ravines, and other sites. Today there are more than 2,000 unauthorized dumps occupying an area of some 87 hectares. This problem also exists because the law reads that individuals who have dumped waste or garbage in violation of this law must pay fines ranging from 85 to 136 hryvnias.” In Japan, all residents must pay between 24 and 45 dollars to have his garbage picked up.

In Germany, consumers must pay between 25 and 50 eurocents for garbage utilization. The coins are returned when empty metal or plastic containers are placed in a special container-recycling machine. Such machines are installed in every store. This explains why garbage on the streets of European capitals is rare. In Ukraine, according to Holiuha, “...we have innovative projects, but they remain on paper. Everyone expects to be paid at once and then work will start.”

Kateryna Borysenko, a member of the National Ecological Center of Ukraine and a vigorous opponent of the waste incineration project in Troieshchyna, told The Day: “By 2011 all dumps will be prohibited; the Energy Waste Disposal Plant is burning some 20 percent of the city’s total garbage, and the end product is ashes, which is more toxic than the original waste.”

THE MAIN THING IS WILL

First of all, people’s ecological culture must be strengthened, the way it is being done at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. According to Masliukivska, “Sorting of garbage was introduced at the university on the students’ initiative. We needed containers, money for them, and a university-based information campaign. We decided to sort our garbage according to paper, glass, and plastic. This was a pilot program, and our experiences were varied because people were dumping all kinds of garbage in the containers. We even saw a construction team dumping a load of cement into a container meant for paper. In other words, we faced another problem: some people simply didn’t know what we were after.”

Some people do not understand why it is necessary to sort garbage, especially in apartment buildings with garbage chutes, where residents can dump their bags of garbage and rush off to work. In some apartment buildings tenants are taught to sort their garbage, and the garbage chute latches are welded to the tube. “This is good because we don’t have cockroaches or other pests in our buildings,” said Zoia Mykolaivna, a tenant in one of these apartment buildings.

Masliukivska admitted that “we abandoned the first part of the project because it could not be shown to anyone. The positive aspect was that, after we took away the containers for the summer and returned them in the spring, we saw glass, plastic bottles, and paper wrappers, old newspapers, and magazines being disposed of properly. The students simply had to get used to sorting their garbage. Most of them had traveled abroad, where garbage sorting is nothing new. We must learn from the West’s experience — not by copying it, but by setting up our own system, because we may not be able to adopt the European standard.

The Hrinko Company’s Tarantsova is certain that “we have to learn from Poland’s experience. Every city in Europe develops its own waste management system, but this kind of management abroad is regulated and supported by the government first, and then on the municipal level. Unlike our company, waste management companies in Europe don’t have to promote their projects.”

Second, it is necessary to bring our legislation in line with European standards. Experts say that current Ukrainian laws no longer conform to world standards. A bill on packaging must be adopted by the Ukrainian parliament, whereby packaging manufacturers will have to pay into the pool for the collection, sorting, and disposal of waste. This system, called the Green Dot, has long been standard practice in European countries. You can see this symbol on glasses of kefir, shampoo bottles, and cans of food. The Green Dot means that the price of the product you are paying for includes collection and recycling. This symbol is known all over Europe under similar names, like Ponto Verde, Point Vert, etc. The license duty is computed pro rata the weight and number of packages.

It is also worth encouraging manufacturers to produce reusable packaging. For example, the British company Nampak Plastics produces two billion bottles a year and has plans for installing a recycling line in 2009 to handle 13,000 tons of plastic bottles to produce low-pressure polythene packaging for food. It also has plans to use natural products in its packaging, like corn sugar, which is a biological solvent and does not harm the environment (e.g., the plastic biosolvent Mirel, which is manufactured supplied by the American company Metabix and Archer Daniels Midland). This plastic biosolvent is an excellent wrapping for biscuits, fruit, and vegetables. Given ideal conditions, this plastic material is recycled within 47 days. In contrast, oil-based transparent packaging material for meat, cheese, and vegetables, has a life of several million years before it decomposes.

Third, every citizen must help to reduce the size of garbage dumps. Shoppers should buy unpackaged products (per weight) — this is less expensive — or buy items that come in packaging or containers that can be sold at a glass and metal recycling center. This system was very effective in Soviet times, when every schoolchild knew that a ton of recycled paper saves 17 trees. So before heading out to the stores, take an old plastic bag instead of buying a new one. The People’s Republic of China has instituted restrictions on the use of plastic bags, effective as of June 1, 2008. Plastic bags are no longer distributed for free in Chinese supermarkets.

Fourth, sort your household garbage by placing glass and plastic bottles and paper packaging in separate plastic bags, and bring them to the nearest recycling station. By observing these few guidelines, you will be reducing the size of all those mountains of garbage, even if by a little, because our unclean cities may soon turn into garbage heaps.