Environmentalists and lawyers of the Association of Environmental Professionals (PAEW) drew the attention of officials and the public to the catastrophic situation with permits for waste treatment operations. They stressed that after the completion of the next transition period provided for by the Law of Ukraine "On Waste Management" on July 9, 2024, there are only 2 entities in the Register of Permits for Operations with Mixed Household Waste instead of potential 794 entities.
PAEW members posted their appeal with a detailed description of the current situation and their own proposals for getting out of it on the Association's website.
In accordance with the requirements of the Law of Ukraine "On Waste Management," from July 09, 2024, the performers of household waste management services, whose installations with a capacity of less than 100 tons/day, must have permission to carry out waste treatment operations.
Experts reported that as of July 10, only 2 subjects have them:
- Communal enterprise "Snyatinsky Gospod" of the Drogobytsk City Council of the Lviv region.
- Lviv communal enterprise "Green City".
Referring to the data of the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, PAEW ecologists claim that potentially the Register of Permits for waste treatment operations should include 794 entities, since by the end of 2022 there were 29,831 settlements and 794 specially designated places for the placement of household waste in the country.
"The presence of only 2 authorized entities for the management of household waste for the entire country is a verdict on the general system of household waste management!" – they stated.
The professional community of PAEW turned to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, the Ministry of Environment, the Association of Cities of Ukraine, the Ministry of Regional Development and Communities with proposals:
- To voice problematic issues of impossibility, complications of the organization of the household waste management system and obtaining a permit for waste treatment operations.
- Propose measures for real reform, including with sufficient, objective transition period and funding.
- Initiate changes to legislation, experimental, simplified procedures and procedures for obtaining a permit document, action plans to achieve the desired state of waste treatment sites.
- Form real regional waste management plans that reflect demographic indicators, territorial features, territorial industries of production, necessary logistics.
Ecopolitic reported on the difficulties that arise in the effort of the Ministry of Environment to implement the reform of the field of waste management. In January The European Business Association called the government should urgently take measures to restore the work of companies in the field of hazardous waste management, because from January 9, 2024, the previous licenses for conducting economic activities in the management of hazardous waste "lost" their validity.
In February, experts of the Association of Environmental Professionals noted, that the hazardous waste management market has been in chaos for almost 1.5 months, as the entire industry has been in the "shadow".
As reported by EcoPolitics, as of the end of March this year only 9 companies in Ukraine received licenses for the implementation of economic activities for the management of hazardous waste, 6 of which have a narrowly focused effect or are issued for the enterprises' own needs. The majority of Ukrainian hazardous waste processing enterprises have lost their licenses.
In May, we informed that in Ukraine over 8 thousand companies will become illegal through the "reform" of waste.
