Specialists of the Association of Environmental Professionals (PAEW) opposed the proposed criminalization of violations of the waste management procedure, since the newly introduced Procedure for issuing permits for waste treatment operations for 9 months allowed only 73 entities to obtain the relevant document.
They published industry statistics and argumentation on their website.
Based on the official data of the State Statistics Service, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, Ecosystems, experts cited the following figures:
- More than 58,000 applicants submitted a waste declaration for 2023.
- Statistical observation of form No. 1-waste (annual) "Report on waste" for 2023 was submitted by 9,880 respondents.
- There are 73 entities in the register of permits for waste processing operations.
Graphics: ukraine-oss.com.
That is, in 9 months (from December 2023 to September 2024), units of enterprises received permission.
PAEW reminded that due to the changes stipulated by the Law of Ukraine "On Waste Management", a large part of the enterprises, which were previously only generators, acquired the status of waste processors and are required to obtain a permit. Potentially, these are all entities that collect secondary, resource-valuable raw materials, scrap metal, waste disposal sites (WWW) and landfills for solid household waste (WWW), as well as entities that use biofuel.
Experts also drew attention to the fact that a basic study of the effectiveness of the Procedure for issuing, refusing to issue, canceling a permit for waste treatment operations, approved by Resolution No. 1328 of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine dated December 19, 2023, was never conducted. The same applies to the law "On waste management" itself.
"Accordingly, there are no grounds to claim that the regulatory act has achieved or failed to achieve the goals declared upon its adoption, and even more so in terms of the decriminalization of actions related to obtaining a permit for waste treatment operations," PAEW says.
Specialists of the Association generally support the need to settle issues related to ensuring environmental safety and proper waste management, but oppose the criminalization of violations in the field of waste management proposed by the Minister of Environmental Protection, Ruslan Strilts.
They consider it premature to adopt the draft article 239-3 "Violation of the waste management procedure established by law", which provides for criminal liability, in particular for carrying out waste treatment operations, hazardous waste management activities without a permit for waste treatment operations/a license to carry out economic activities of hazardous waste management.
"Taking into account the statistical data and the number of entities that have received permission, if the changes are made, tens of thousands of business entities will become potential criminals," PAEW claims.
But there is also a positive. As Ecopolitic reported, as part of an experimental project the government simplified the procedure for obtaining permits for waste treatment for enterprises.
