The conference was organised at the initiative of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine, under the auspices of the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine and projects funded by the EU (Twinning, APENA, BRDO), the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the DESPRO Swiss-Ukrainian Decentralisation Support Project in Ukraine. 

At the conference, there was presented a draft framework law on waste, the National Waste Management Plan, and peculiar features of sectoral laws: electrical and electronic equipment, batteries, and packaging. 

During the discussion of the draft law on waste, Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine Ostap Semerak emphasised the importance of implementation of such a basic framework law for the modernization of Ukrainian legislation in the area of waste management. The law will start the adaptation of legal framework both to modern Ukrainian environment and requirements of European directives. 

According to the Minister, only 3% of solid waste in Ukraine is processed, 12% of packaging is taken for processing, however, at the same time, only 5% of Ukrainian citizens consider that the subject of waste management is important. Therefore, the framework law will only initiate the reform in the area of waste management, because, for its qualitative implementation, an active and knowledgeable participation of each citizen is required. 

Maksym Barinov, Head of Department of the Ministry of Regional Development, Construction and Housing and Communal Services of Ukraine told about the importance of amalgamation of communities for the purpose of addressing the issue of waste management - "The draft law "On Waste Produced by Population Centres" is aimed at raising living standards of the population. One of the main sub-tasks is to decrease the number of landfills. That issue cannot be resolved fragmentarily; it is the matter of comprehensive management. One of the key messages is the amalgamation of territorial communities. We already have examples of successful implementation of pilot projects exactly in the waste management sector. That is, when communities co-operate and address the issues of waste management in their territory. It means common infrastructure facilities, powerful landfills and enterprises - either incineration or processing ones. The reason is that no community will be able to maintain all such facilities, it would require much money for a community to comply with all environmental safety rules and standards. 

In addition to the National Waste Management Plan, there will be also plans developed for each region. 

- A regional plan, in addition to objectives and tasks, will contain an action plan for achieving those objectives, mechanisms and tools, in particular, the cooperation of territorial communities. Also, it will provide for monitoring measures. The following principle is laid down: after regional plans are approved, the possibility of funding for the account of the state and regional budgets will be only available to those facilities that are included in the regional plans. Enjoying some autonomy and voluntariness, the bodies of local self-government will have an opportunity to develop the infrastructure in a manner they wish, however, it would be already improbable to claim for funding from the state and regional budgets, in view of the logic of this process, when those facilities are not included in regional plans. The task of the region is to reach understanding with the bodies of local self-government both during the process of regional plans development and during their implementation, Public Services and Monitoring Expert of the DESPRO Swiss-Ukrainian Decentralisation Support Project in Ukraine Viacheslav Sorokovsky mentioned in his speech. 

- When we spoke about inter-municipal cooperation for the first time at the meeting of the Association of ATC Chairpersons, it was taken as boasting of representatives of the Poltava region, Oleksii Riabokon, the Deputy Chairman of the Association of Amalgamated Territorial Communities noted in his speech. - Now the idea of inter-municipal cooperation has been taken by many regions and it is carried out within or on the basis of amalgamated territorial communities. And it also proves that very those locations - the amalgamated communities - may be the self-starters who would resolve a huge amount of outstanding problems at the national level. In my opinion, those are feasible tasks and powers for us to take.