Ukrainian officials are preparing 9 new bills “on garbage and waste”: the fines increase tenfold and create a kind of “ministry of garbage”

The government has proposed a tenfold increase in fines for violating the rules for handling garbage. For example, a cigarette butt thrown out of the window of the entrance, according to new orders, will cost the violator 2250 UAH.

However, the business, which in the case of the adoption of the draft law No. 10411 “On waste management”, will have to master new technologies for the utilization and recycling of waste, will also be gained.

Moreover, in Ukraine they want to create a kind of “ministry of waste” – a new central executive body that will develop specific requirements for producers, a system of responsibility for them, as well as long-term waste management plans.

Promised the European Union

Over the past two decades, during which the issue of garbage has been shelved, regulation of this sphere is not just outdated. The BRDO office for effective management analyzed the problem and found out that waste management in Ukraine is regulated by 52 regulatory acts, of which 5 regulatory documents were regarded by BRDO as illegal and another 8 were called irrelevant. In practice, this led to an uncontrollable increase in the number and utilization of landfills in the country.

According to BRDO, there are 5,470 landfills officially operating in Ukraine. They occupy throughout the country, with the exception of the occupied territories, an area of ​​about 90 square kilometers, with 1,646 polygons, as of 2018, the year does not meet the standards of environmental safety, and another 305 are overcrowded. At the same time, illegal landfills occupy about 25 square kilometers across Ukraine.

Now in Ukraine, according to BRDO, work:

40 plants for the processing of secondary polymers.
20 – for the processing of PET containers (i.e., plastic bottles, cans, etc.).
15 plants for the processing of metal, glass and paper.
However, even, they are not loaded at full capacity. Indeed, according to analysts, over 85% of potential recyclables in Ukraine are sent to landfills.

Disposal in Ukraine costs, depending on the region, from 12.5 to 50 UAH. per cubic meter:

Manufacturers will expand responsibility

The draft law, developed by the Ministry of Environment and submitted to the Parliament by the government, aims to radically change the situation. So that waste has ceased to be a burden for utility budgets, and private business has emerged in the industry. For this, the norms suggest introducing a “five-step hierarchy”, which is used in the EU:

Wasteless consumption or waste minimization. For example, through the implementation in our country of a “system of extended producer responsibility”, which provides for the latter’s obligations to receive waste from the final consumers, develop such goods and their components, which will minimize the negative impact on the environment.

Recycling, which will use the material again.
Recycling, which in new bills is called “recycling”.

Recovery – this is how the authors called the waste treatment process for recycling.

Burning, dumping and other debris removal methods.
According to Viktor Berezin, an analyst at Gosvneshinform, according to data for 2015, more than 90% of the total production in Ukraine used primary raw materials. And although by the end of 2018, this figure dropped to 80% -85% from various sources, it is all the same, far from the figures of the European Union, where almost 90% of producers at least partially reuse waste. As Berezina specified, the annual turnover of funds in the recycling market in Germany is € 70 billion, and the industry employs 250 thousand people. Sweden even imports from 700 thousand to a million tons of waste from other countries, since 30 large power plants in the country work on recycling.

But, in order for the Ukrainians to stop spending budget funds for waste, and the business began to earn them, it is not enough just to pay fines for those who litter or otherwise violate the requirements for waste disposal.

What types of waste will regulate

The Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine explained that the draft law “On Waste Management” is a framework document. According to Minister Ostap Semerak, the ministry is developing 9 more sectoral bills. The norms of all these documents harmonize the legislation of Ukraine with the different requirements of the European Parliament Directives:

About batteries and rechargeable batteries (EU Directive 2006/66).
About electronics or electrical equipment (EU Directive 2012/19).
About packaging and packaging waste (EU Directive 94/62).
About household waste.
About waste disposal.
About waste incineration.
Pro waste oil.
Pro vehicles decommissioned.
Pro waste management industry.

Officials plan that all these projects will be ready within a year, since, according to the signed agreements with the EU, legislation on waste should come into force in October 2020.