The higher the societal development and technological progress is, the more waste of life activities we leave. Today, Ukraine suffers from garbage. Every year its quantity is increased by one billion tons. The country has more than 3.6 thousand polygons with total area of more than 6.3 thousand hectares. It is essential that 70% of waste is recyclable materials, which require processing in order to reduce production costs.

In the framework of Andre Olshevski’s Mission on 18 March 2011 there was a Study visit of the Decentralization Support Project in Ukraine - DESPRO’s staff to a small private enterprise "Rada" in Bucha, Kyiv oblast.

Its Director, Petro Semko, told that the ecological company possesses 18-year experience in the area of municipal solid waste (MSW) treatment. The main focus of “Rada” small private enterprise (SPE) is collecting, storing and processing various types of recyclable materials. According to him, the role of people is extremely important is in this process. More and more often, one can see special new containers in the streets of Bucha. They are located near multi-storey buildings, supermarkets, and schools for separate waste collection. In the private sector, where there are no containers, the ‘2 bags’ system is proposed. A black garbage bag is for food waste, household waste, contaminated packaging and used personal hygiene products, and it is purchased the owner him/herself. A transparent garbage bag is for sorted dry waste (as recyclable materials), and the owner receives it for free. The garbage is put near the driveway and, according to the approved schedule, it is removed by special vehicles. According to the director, this system allows not only improving the ecological situation in Bucha, but also saving money of house owners. The thing is that the cost of black garbage bags per month will be much less than the fee for the disposition of garbage. The dwellers of multi-storey buildings profit from this situation. The disposition of garbage by Bucha housing maintenance and utilities board is a rather costly process, which is subsidized from the local budget. “Rada” enterprise removes garbage from their containers free of charge. This, in turn, facilitates the work of the public utility company and saves budgetary funds, which are later spent on street paving, repairing entrances, and beautification.

Oksana Garnets, Senior Project Coordinator, mentioned that the experience of “Rada” is very valuable for the country as a whole. It can also be used within the framework of the DESPRO Project activities for demonstration of the positive example in Tulchyn and Bakhchysaray rayons where the Decentralization Support Project in Ukraine – DESPRO, together with UNDP Project "Municipal Governance and Sustainable Development Programme” and local authorities, are implementing inter-municipal projects in the area of MSW treatment.

The meeting was attended by: Petro Semko (Director of "Rada" SPE), Natalya Semko (CEO of "Rada" SPE), Andre Olshevski (Expert in the area of SWM treatment, the Swiss Resource Centre and Consultancies for Development, Skat), Volodymyr Kuznetsov (Director of the film "Beyond the Garbage") as well as the staff of the Decentralization Support Project in Ukraine – DESPRO: Oksana Garnets (Project Manager for DESPRO in Ukraine), Vyacheslav Sorokovskyi (the DESPRO Expert on Decentralization), Andriy Artov (the DESPRO Expert on SWM treatment), and Olena Sukhodolska (Public Relations Specialist).