About 600 thousand tons of hazardous waste is generated in Ukraine annually. These include worked out fluorescent lamps, motor oils, batteries, unfit and expired pesticides, pesticide packaging, medical waste and others. In European countries, this waste is safely generated, recycled, neutralized and disposed of, but in Ukraine it happens in a different way.
Most of the hazardous waste in Ukraine is found in landfills, along the roads, rivers, and in tree belt areas. Thus, worked out fluorescent lamps containing mercury, were found near Zmitniv village of Chernihiv region and the town of Chyhyryn of Cherkasy region1, near private houses of the village of Malekhiv in Lviv region 2. Plastic containers with pesticide residues were found by local dwellers in the village of Chervona Sloboda, which is in 1.5 km from Cherkasy. This hazardous waste was being dumped there and burned3. Hazardous medical waste in labelled containers, with the names of laboratories and operating departments, which formed this waste, and also with documents on the transfer of medical waste by medical institutions to licensed enterprises, was found in a forest near one of the villages of Kyiv region4. And this is only a small number of facts that journalists and environmentalists reveal in their investigations.
1 “A waste dump of worked out fluorescent lamps was found near the village of Zmitniv”, 10/19/2016, online edition “Chernihivshchyna”: events and comments: http://pik.cn.ua/23963/bilya-sela-zmitniv-znaydeno-zvalishche-vidpratsbovanih-lyuminestsentnih-lamp/“A dump of fluorescent lamps was found in Cherkasy ”, 11/22/2016, Internet edition depo.ua: http://poltava.depo.ua/ukr/cherkasy/u–cherkasah–znaydeno–zvalishche–lyuminestsentnih–lamp-22112016094400
“Ecological crime in the capital”, 2016/03/11, the Internet edition of LLC “TV studio” Information Service “(NTN): http://ntn.ua/uk/video/news/2016/03/11/20410
2 “How shrewd businessmen make money on hazardous wastes” the web page of the news channel “24”: https://24tv.ua/yak_spritni_pidpriyemtsi_zaroblyayut_na_pererobtsi_nebezpechnih_vidhodiv_n867459
3 “A hectare of herbicides and pesticides was found near Cherkasy”, a news release “Today”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rtWaxSAeug
4 “A landfill of medical waste was found in the forest in Kyiv region”, the release of TNS news: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnJd7mba1R8
