Alchevsk Study Tour Learns Waste Management Best Practices
Ten Alchevsk residents recently returned from a U.S. tour sponsored by the USAID Community Connections Program, ready to help their hometown to implement the best waste management practices they’ve learned. The participants, who represented both Alchevsk’s private and public sectors, spent three weeks seeing first-hand how the creation, disposal, and treatment of waste have entered the American national cultural consciousness.
Post-consumer solid waste (PCSW) remains a major and one of the most common environmental health hazards in Ukraine. Improper and inefficient methods of collection, transport and disposal of post-consumer solid waste promote the spread of infectious disease vectors, while toxic products (e.g. acid batteries discarded into curbside containers) and the release of uncontrolled poisonous leachates into drinking/irrigation water sources threaten water safety. Together, these practices lead to a higher burden of death and disability.
Alchevsk, a city with population of 116,000, is a rayon center and one of the biggest industrial centers of the Luhansk oblast and Donbas region. Solid waste management is one of the highest priority tasks on the Alchevsk city agenda.
The Global Center of Greater Cincinnati hosted the Alchevsk delegation, arranging site visits and a variety of presentations to provide participants with opportunities to learn how changes in U.S. waste management practices occurred within the context of shifting economic, social, legal and industrial priorities. They addressed issues that included public awareness, growth of the third sector, advocacy and litigation, accountability of federal, state, and local government agencies, and implementation of anti-corruption measures. The Alchevsk participants studied how grassroots movements and community involvement triggered the movement toward stricter anti-pollution and waste disposal legislation and compliance on the state and federal levels. The visitors also learned about changes that have occurred in consumer packaging, product development (e.g. proliferation of bio-degradable containers) and disposal (e.g., increased recycling efforts) through community pressure and involvement, and how they reflect the public demand for more conservation efforts. Participants also explored how communities organize the collection and disposal of household hazardous waste, such as batteries, bleach bottles, and painting supplies.
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| Ukrainian study tour participants visit a laboratory at the Environmental Health and Safety Department at the Division of Health Services, University of Cincinnati. |
The participants observed how improvements in waste management have resulted in the reduction of environmental and ecological damage and health hazards from the perspective of both technical advances and, more importantly, as a consequence of heightened public consciousness. They were able to evaluate how shared attitudes can have an impact locally, regionally and nationally, and how these attitudes can be reinforced through cooperation among sectors and the use of various incentives.
The three-week program included site visits to many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with an environmental focus, as well as city and state agencies in Ohio and Kentucky; environmental protection departments; sanitation departments; water reclamation facilities; waste management divisions; sewer districts; recycling areas and sanitary landfills; waste management areas; and, industrial sites. The group visited the environmental health and safety department at the University of Cincinnati, and met with Cincinnati Mayor Mike Mallory at City Hall.
As study tour participants consider how to apply what they learned in the U.S., they have begun to focus their initial efforts on a few distinct areas: community work in the sphere of waste management; cooperation of local government and NGOs; outreach programs; ecological education in schools; consumer waste management community projects; recycling industrial waste for secondary usage; waste recycling plants; use of methane gas from landfills for industrial and community needs; and, waste management in medical institutions.
In the near future, the group will organize an Internet-based conference with U.S. NGOs they visited during the visit to continue discussing issues of waste management education in schools and cooperation of local NGOs and government in outreach programs and community projects.
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