Every year during the spring-autumn floods, tons of plastic garbage float along the Tisza River to Hungary, causing international scandals, imposing fines on the state of Ukraine, and diplomatic notes from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary
All this worsens not only the international image of Ukraine, but also the state of the environment in the Zakarpattia region and its tourist attractiveness. After all, for 20% of the mountain population of the region there are no services of centralized garbage collection and removal. Where these services exist, there are often problems with its disposal, as local landfills are already closed and official landfills operating in the region refuse to accept previously unsorted waste.
Today in the region there is a very tense situation with solid waste, the lion’s share of which is generated in households. This situation has been going on for 10 years.
Zakarpattia has had a relevant Waste Management Strategy for 15 years since 2013. A separate operational goal of the Zakarpattia Regional Development Strategy for the period 2015-2020 has been set aside to address this issue, but the regional authorities have not advanced in these years in solving the issue of establishing a system of selective garbage collection in all settlements of the region.
With the help of the organization “Ecosphera” since 2013, a system of selective garbage collection was established in the mountain villages of Volovets and Mizhhirya districts, where before, due to the lack of their own rural landfills, all garbage was in the environment. Today, the problem of solid waste in these villages, which are located in the upper eaches of the river Latorytsya and in the valley of the river Tereblya, practically solved.
However, it is impossible to solve the problem of garbage recycling in the region by non-governmental organizations and rural territorial communities. A separate operational goal is present in the current Regional Development Strategy of the Zakarpattia region for the period 2021-2027. Analysis and monitoring of the implementation of the National Waste Management Strategy until 2030 and existing strategic documents in the field related to TPB will allow us to identify the reasons for the systematic “slippage” of this issue at the Zakarpattia Regional State Administration and develop and discuss with the authorities our proposals for progress. The results of the analysis and monitoring will be made public through the information campaign.
Territory of activity: Zakarpattia and Lviv regions of the Carpathian region of Ukraine
Objective: to find out the causes of the “garbage crisis” in Zakarpattia region, make them public and discuss with the regional authorities clear steps to address it through analysis and monitoring of national policies and regional strategies on solid waste, information campaign in the media and a round table with the involvement of all stakeholders.
Goal 1: to conduct research and analytical work: to collect and analyze all documents related to the national solid waste policy, regional solid waste strategies and their implementation.
Goal 2: evaluate and make recommendations to the authorities.
Goal 3: discuss the provisions of the analytical document at a public round table with the participation of all stakeholders – representatives of regional authorities, local communities, deputies of the regional council, journalists, environmentalists. Publicity of the “round table” will be provided through a video broadcast of the event online on FB and recording of speeches on the channel of the NGO “Ecosphera” on YouTube.
Goal 4: to widely inform the society of Zakarpattia region about the problem of solid waste, attempts of regional authorities to solve it and proposed ways for the effectiveness of this process, the progress of the project and the main provisions of the analytical document developed as a result of analytical work.
The information campaign will consist of work with the media, publications on its own information resources (websites, social media pages, YouTube channels), as well as a visit to Lviv for enterprises and organizations in the field of waste management.
Target audience of the project: employees of the Department of Ecology and Natural Resources and employees of the Department of Investment and Infrastructure of the Zakarpattia Regional State Administration, territorial communities, deputies of the Zakarpattia Regional Council, residents of the region.
Results:
- In November 2021, as part of the project, we visited the largest recycling station in the region. Thanks to the company’s activities, tons of household waste go to recycling, rather than ending up in landfills. How it works and why it is so important to change people’s minds told on our website.
- In December 2021, as part of the project, we visited the minisorting station at the condominium in Uzhhorod, which was created by a resident of the house Ksenia Shokina in July 2020. For all time on delivery of secondary raw materials earned almost 3 thousand UAH, which was spent on improving the area near the entrance. This not only saves money needed for the removal of general waste, but also reduces the amount of waste in the environment. More about such an environmental initiative read on our website.
- On December 17, 2021, the NGO “Ecosphera” organized of the press for representatives of the Zakarpattia media to Lviv to get acquainted with the practice of conscious waste management. How to implement the principles of zero waste in the city and what ideas are possible to implement in Zakarpattia.
You can learn more about the trip in these materials:
https://www.facebook.com/ekosphera.ua/posts/2982441922070421
https://www.facebook.com/zerowastelviv/posts/4891051217625181
http://sevlush.info/topnews/pryklad-dlia-zakarpattia-iak-bezvidkhodni-tekhnolohii-vtiliuiutsia-ulvovi.html?fbclid=IwAR28dRMu-O8EODifyinTvHicFvPbg0nhwaQMAMyBXtGyj4IkPgYJCi85VQ0
https://prozahid.com/hroshi-pid-nohamy-abo-iak-sortuvannia-smittia-prynosyt-ekonomichni-vyhody-dosvid-lvova/?fbclid=IwAR1NZaxHwnwRintFhNuh0fDRJFeyVXmfpgJplweEv6HyJzHHApb5hJGXhos - An analytical document (policy paper) based on the results of the analytical study is currently being prepared for publication. We also published the first video report on the situation with landfills in Zakarpattia and the analysis of the Waste Management Strategy for a 15-year period (which has existed since 2013). NGO “Ecosphera” constantly informs the public about this problem and the results of our project.
You can watch the video on our YouTube channel - Conducted a media campaign among the residents of Zakarpattia regarding the waste situation: we wrote about how the waste situation in Zakarpattia had changed during the 2 months of the war,
“The problem of garbage contains a serious mental component” – ecologist Oksana Stankevich-Volosyanchuk told about the analytical project for the NGO “Ecological Nation”
“To change, not to get used to it.” How settlers organize environmental actions in Zakarpattia
Waste management reform begins in Ukraine: what will change for Ukrainians?
Preventing the problem before it arises: how does the Zero Waste Lviv community work in war conditions and why is it important for Zakarpattia? - The second video report was published: Zero Waste or Waste-to-Energy: what is the difference between these waste management concepts? The article talks about how Lviv embodies the concept of Zero Waste? Why the profitability of waste incineration plants is quite questionable; whether proper environmental state control over the work of enterprises of this type in Ukraine is possible; what is the peculiarity of the work of the Vienna and Copenhagen waste incineration plants, which are manipulatively given to us as a model?
- The third video report was published: Eco-activism in Zakarpattia: how local initiatives change the situation with waste in the region. The material shows public initiatives aimed at solving the garbage problem within a certain settlement.
- The fourth video report was published: How has the situation with waste in Uzhhorod Oblast changed since the beginning of the large-scale war? . The material shows about the situation with the landfill in Uzhhorod, the work of the recycling station “Proektna, 3” and the waste sorting station “Vtorinka” in the village of Nevitske
Partners: NGO «ZeroWaste Lviv», International Renaissance Foundation
