Hope for Ukraine’s Devastated Environment

By Andrew Wodoslawsky

Ukraine is an ecological disaster waiting to happen. Anyone who has ever travelled in Ukraine has probably made note of the fact that there is (basically) no recycling in the country. Those who have travelled through industrial regions will probably remember blatant pollution problems: garbage dumped by the roadside or in the forest, smoke stacks belching out unfiltered, yellow smoke, factories pouring their unprocessed wastewater into lakes and rivers. Although there are laws and official recommendations to mediate ecological damage, a chronic lack of funding for municipalities makes sanctioned solutions unaffordable.

The organization Eco-Environment (Eko-Dovkillia) is on a mission to change all this. It was formed in 1997 by a core  group of 25 people that cared about the status of their town’s ecology, and set out first to reforest their region. The Government of The Netherlands sponsored the project and bought 30,000 seedlings that Eco-Environment raised on reclaimed land, and planted them with the help of 1,000 volunteers. Soon their activities included: ecological education in the oblast-region, building an ecological library, analysis of the water for chemical (pesticide) residues, establishing composting as the norm, publishing ecological information, and reforestation.

It became obvious that Eco-Environment needed a centre where the members could store materials, organize themselves and use as a classroom. They bought and renovated an old factory with some financial help from American sources. The Canadian Embassy sponsored several solar panels and batteries to power some of the lighting, and reduce electrical costs.

Eco-Environment also collects recyclables - paper, cardboard, metal and plastic bottles - from its members to sell to local factories, yielding enough of an income to pay for electricity for the centre during the summer only. To be able to affordably work during the winter as well, the organization has made plans to install additional solar panels and batteries, and attach these to a system known as a ‘heat-pump’, which would regulate the temperature in the building year-round, with zero emissions and with zero dependence on the electric grid. The organization is currently looking for grants to apply to, to help pay for their unique and energetic sustainability efforts.

If you would like to learn more, contact Eco-Environment’s president Yaroslav Turcheniak at eko.zhydachiv@i.ua .

Until the government takes concrete action, it’s up to grass roots organizations such as Eco-Environment to slow impending ecological disaster.

Andrew Wodoslawsky visited “Eco-Environment” in Ukraine this summer, after having completed a thesis project on the subject of recycling in Ukraine. He is also Vice President - Great Lakes Region, Ukrainian Canadian Student’s Union (SUSK).