Alchevsk Public and Private Sectors Reps Learn about U.S. Waste Management Practices

Participants visit a laboratory at the Environmental Health and Safety Department at the Division of Health Services, University of Cincinnati. Ten Alchevsk residents have just returned from a U.S.  tour on waste management practices, sponsored by the USAID Community Connections Program, and are ready to help their hometown to implement them.  The participants, who represented both Alchevsk’s private and public sectors, spent three weeks seeing for themselves 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, toxic products (e.g.  acid batteries discarded into curbside containers), release of uncontrolled poisonous leachates into drinking/irrigation water sources.  This, in turn, leads 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 trip by the Alchevsk group and arranged site visits and a variety of presentations that gave participants the opportunity to learn how changes in US 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.  They studied how grass roots movements and community involvement triggered the movement toward stricter anti-pollution and waste disposal legislation (and compliance) on the state and federal levels.  Visitors learned about changes that have occurred in consumer packaging, product development (i.e.  more bio-degradable) and disposal (i.e.  more recycling) through community pressure and involvement, and how they reflect the public demand for more conservation efforts.  They were able to explore how communities organize the collection and disposal of household hazardous waste (batteries, bleach bottles, painting supplies, etc.). The participants saw the improvements in waste management that 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 impact locally, regionally and nationally, and how they can be reinforced through cooperation among sectors and the use of various incentives.   The three-week program included site visits to many NGOs with an environmental focus, and 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, industrial sites.  The group visited the environmental health and safety department at the University of Cincinnati, and even dropped in on Cincinnati Mayor Mike Mallory at City Hall.   As the participants in the study tour think about how to apply in Alchevsk what they saw and learned in the US, they are considering the following topics and areas of work: • 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) • Consumer waste management community projects • Recycling industrial waste for secondary usage • Waste recycling plants • Landfills – using methane gas for industrial and community needs • Waste management in medical institutions. In the nearest future, the group will organize an Internet-conference with U.S.  NGOs they visited during the visit to continue discussing issues of waste management education in schools and cooperation of NGOs and government in outreach programs and community projects.

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