EcoPolitic decided to analyze the dynamics of issuing permits by the Ministry of Finance in the field of hazardous waste management and calculate the amount of time required for all Ukrainian companies operating in this area to be able to license.
In Ukraine, the reform of the sphere of waste management continues, part of which is the disposal of hazardous waste. The new law No. 2320-IX "On Waste Management" required market players to continue their activities until January 9, 2024 to obtain licenses under the new European rules.
But due to the inconsistency of the actions of the Cabinet of Ministers with the requirements of the mentioned law, as of the end of January, there was not a single licensed hazardous waste disposal company in Ukraine, since the previous licenses for conducting economic activities on hazardous waste management "lost" their validity. Business representatives are also faced with the fact that they cannot dispose of this type of waste legally.
In February, the process began to move little by little. February 1 The Ministry of Environment issued a license for the right to carry out economic activities in the management of hazardous waste of the company "KHADO – TECHNOLOGY" and on February 2 – NVK "UKREKOPROM". The third permit document for hazardous waste management managed to get only after 2 weeks of the "Waste Management Center" company. In total, about 200 companies in Ukraine were to receive new licenses.
In June, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine began to publish weekly on its Telegram channel the number of Ukrainian enterprises that were able to obtain licenses for hazardous waste management. Based on these data, we compiled the following table:
That is, for 2 summer months, only 6 (!) companies were able to get licenses from the Ministry of Environment – that's an average of 3 every month!
It is worth noting that there are quite frequent cases when companies receive licenses far from the first attempt. For example, "Waste Management Center" got license on the fifth attempt, and his four previous applications for obtaining a license were left without consideration by the Ministry of Environment.
Now, given the speed at which the Ministry is issuing licenses, let's calculate the approximate date when all interested companies will receive this permit document. To do this, we take an approximate number of interested businesses (200 operators of the hazardous waste disposal services market), subtract those that already have a license, and divide by 3 – the number of lucky companies that manage to get permission to work legally every month.
As a result, we have a term of approximately 58 months or almost 5 years. In our opinion, it is a bit too much and the Ministry of Environment should speed up the implementation of its "European environmental track".
In February, EcoPolitic talked about what the Association of Environmental Professionals said: public statements by officials of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources regarding the possibility of collecting and accepting hazardous waste without a license do not correspond to reality.
