Great problems coming from small batteries

Members of Parliament suggest educating Ukrainians’ ecological consciousness through their wallets. They say that only fines can teach Ukrainians to throw plastic, glass, and food leftovers into different dustbins. The corresponding bill No.10075 “On the amendments to certain legislative acts of Ukraine regulating waste treatment” by Yulia Liovochkina, Yurii Miroshnychenko (The Party of Regions) and Vladyslav Kaskiv (NU-NS) was registered in the parliament on February 17, 2012.

The bill provides for imposing fines for improper domestic wastes treatment and prohibiting unprocessed waste disposal.

ONE AA BATTERY POLLUTES 400 LITERS OF WATER OR 20 SQUARE METERS OF SOIL

Assistant at the department of management and economic law at the Donetsk National Technical University Yulia Shulaieva, who holds Ph.D. in ecology, emphasizes: “One of the biggest, ecological problems is the growing number of territories occupied with the used electronics since most of them are large.” Shulaieva gives the example of the Donetsk region where nearly two percent of the territory are occupied with the wastes. Moreover, these wastes have a specific structure and do not degrade over the centuries. This is why such wastes are categorized as dangerous.

The EU members take the measures to prevent the ecological threat caused by the accumulation of electronic waste very serious. Producers fund electronic wastes treatment by purpose payments to special recycling funds. These expenses make the wholesale and retail prices customers pay for the new electronic equipment.

THERE ARE ONLY THREE BATTERIES RECYCLING PLANTS IN EUROPE. ONE OF THEM IS IN UKRAINE

The states having the advanced technologies of dangerous wastes recycling can have a significant economic profit from buying them since after processing precious metals are left. The electric and electronic equipment is made of highly precious metals: gold, platinum, silver, copper, etc. For example, plastic, iron, and aluminum that can be recycled make more than a half of the weight of an average PC. The percentage of gold in most of the electronic wastes is relatively low; however, its concentration is higher than in the natural ore. According to the US Geological Survey, one ton of computer wastes contains the same amount of gold as 18 tons of gold ore.

In Europe there are only three plants having the facilities to process batteries. One of them is in Germany, the other one is in France. In September 2011 the third one, the Lviv Public Enterprise “Argentum” was opened in Ukraine. However, its processing amounts are very low because the collection of batteries in Ukraine is poorly organized. The enterprise is ready to process up to a ton of batteries a day whereas over the six months of work they have not collected even half a ton of them. “We know how to process but we do not have what to process,” deputy director for innovation of the PE “Argentum” Taras Kohut told the staff reporter of The Day in Lviv Tetiana Kozyrieva.

Today “Argentum” is open for cooperation. “All of us have to put as many efforts as possible to prevent batteries from going to the ground since we have already thrown so many of them,” Kohut says.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR TREATING DANGEROUS WASTES?

The main reason why the batteries are accumulated at the trash dumps and not at the recycling enterprises is the absence of a law that would regulate the whole process of treating this waste: starting with the production or importation of the new equipment to Ukraine and up to the organization of collection, recycling, and disposal of the used equipment, lawyers say.

“Back in 2006 the law ‘On chemical sources of electrical energy’ which is fundamental in this area was adopted to regulate this type of wastes. However, it is still a dead law which is hardly ever used,” the lawyer of the volunteers’ movement “Prostir Svobody” Marta Ruda told The Day. The expert emphasized that instead of a comprehensive network of waste collecting and recycling Ukraine has separate attempts of the community to fulfill the tasks that, according to the abovementioned law, have to be fulfilled by special enterprises.

There are no clear responsibilities or people in charge of the creation and functioning of the network of collection and recycling of the chemical sources of electrical energy which is the goal of the whole process.

Ideally the model of treating this dangerous waste should be the following: producers make equipment and have to guarantee its safe recycling. The state should control this process and NGOs should help to raise the level of people’s ecological education. This three-level model of responsibility has already proved to be efficient in many European countries. People informed about the harm done by the used batteries thrown to the trash dumps bring them to special centers. Producers making batteries build the expenses for their collection and recycling into their price. The state controls this process through the adequate legislation.

The Day was explained at the public enterprise “Ukrekoresursy” (which is the only official business entity nominated by the Cabinet Council (the decree of the Cabinet Council of Ukraine No. 915 of July 26, 2001) for the organization of wastes collection and recycling), they do not work with this type of waste since it is dangerous waste and it is not their responsibility.

The Day addressed the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine but was redirected to the local authorities. When asked by The Day, deputy director of the department of ecological safety Oleksandr Semenets explained that “collecting and recycling wastes, comprising dangerous wastes such as used lamps containing mercury and the wastes of the electric and electronic equipment (batteries) is the responsibility of the local authorities.” By February 15, 2012 the ministry has given 57 licenses for treating the wastes of the electric and electronic equipment including batteries.

As The Day was explained at the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, the enterprises importing batteries to Ukraine do not pay the state a single penny for their collection and recycling since there is “no mechanism.” After 20 years of independence when the landfills are filled with tons of mortally poisonous heavy metals our state has only decided to “improve” the ecological legislation.

COMMENTARIES

Oksana VIITYK, senior specialist of the ecology department at the Lviv City Council:

“Plastic bottles have been successfully collected in Lviv for a long time now. Also we have recently placed separate bins for paper and glass. They are taken by garbage collecting companies. The situation with dangerous wastes (such as electronics, luminous tubes, energy saving lamps and batteries) is much more complicated: according to the decree of the Ministry of Regional Development of Ukraine, to collect dangerous wastes a license is needed. If we win a grant, we will be able to buy an installation that divides lamp holders from glass bulbs and chemically fixes mercury. Such an installation made in Sweden costs 700,000 euros which is too expensive for our city.

“As for the bins to collect batteries, we want to place them in kindergartens, schools, universities, and housing offices. We have already agreed it with garbage collecting companies that will take those bins for free. ‘Argentum’ wants to install a modern recycling line but the NGOs immediately protested: ‘This is hazardous production and we do not need it in Lviv.’ Probably, the community should put its efforts not into prohibiting this production but making it as clean as possible.”

Valerii MARTYNIUK, head of the housing and communal services department at the executive committee of the Korosten Town Council:

“In Korosten there are not any utility enterprises that would collect such small wastes as batteries. However, it should be noted that batteries for torches or watches are not categorized as dangerous wastes in any documents. The attention is focused on products containing mercury. Recycling process needs to be funded. None of the local budgets would allocate any money for this. The only way out is to make producers or shops selling batteries take them from the people and give to specialized enterprises. In Korosten we only sort domestic wastes such as plastic, paper, and glass. People do not always recycle them but at schools we teach children to do it, we run special classes.”

Oleh SEMENKO, head of department for environmental protection at the Dnipropetrovsk City Council:

“Now we are creating a municipal landfill for solid domestic waste and a recycling line for dangerous wastes such as rubber, oils, medical equipment, batteries, mercury lamps, etc. The city budget has provided 8.5 million hryvnias for this purpose and 2 million have been already allocated. I think the rest of the sum will be allocated as well. Before, our trash was taken by ‘unknown’ companies to Kharkiv for recycling. But now we will have our own facilities for recycling dangerous wastes. What is more, a private company is building in Dnipropetrovsk the first plant in Ukraine of non-polluting storage batteries recycling.”

Anatolii PAVLOV, first deputy minister of the regional development and housing and communal services of the Crimea:

“Unfortunately, in the Crimea we do not have any enterprises that would collect and recycle AA, AAA, and other batteries used in torches, radios, players, voice recorders, and other equipment. We do have enterprises that collect and recycle car storage batteries and they could probably recycle small batteries; however, collecting them is quite difficult and non-profitable. I think it is the task for future when the collection of domestic waste such as glass, metals, and plastic is organized, we will have a real possibility to collect small batteries and accumulators.”

Interviewed by Tetiana KOZYRIEVA, The Day, Lviv; Valerii KOSTIUKEVYCH, The Day, Zhytomyr; Vadym RYZHKOV, The Day, Dnipropetrovsk; Mykola SEMENA, Simferopol