Wastes segregation

The issue of wastes is currently in our full view, literally. Unlike air and water pollution, every day we can see trash on the streets and overfilled trash bins.

The logistics is this simple: useless stuff is discarded to a bin or container and taken to landfill afterwards. Period.

We may believe there is nothing wrong in this primitive procedure, but is that really so?

If we look just a bit closer we discover that environment is being polluted from the very moment a package of unsorted wastes is thrown into a container which bears no special labelling like “plastic” or “paper” and usually holds food odds, glass, PET bottles, paper, spoilt clothing, wood, food packaging, polyethylene, discharged single-use batteries, leaves, twigs, mercury bulbs and many more. Materials like paper, glass, wood, or plastic are recyclable, i.e. they can be sold to recycling companies. Yet in a container with unsorted litter they get in touch with food odds and other organic stuff and thus become non-recyclable. In summer, when decay runs the most intensively the stench from containers is extremely heavy.

Now think of a landfill in Makukhivka as an enormous bin for mixed wastes daily filled with tons of domestic wastes that stay there for very long, adding up to waste land’s square and height, and aggravating poor environmental condition in the village and near Poltava.

The results of ignoring wastes segregation can be observed at any time.

In summer we can see fires in the landfill that free into air the mixture of harmful chemicals.
And the main reason for it is wastes and the processes inside trash piles. For example, decay of organics generates warmth and methane, the latter is highly flammable in large concentration, especially when broken glass nearby gathers sunlight, acting like a lens. You could have seen it shine when you passed through.

Another dangerous companion of any landfill is filtrate. What is it? You’ve probably noticed traces of liquid when taking your home trash bag out of the bucket. It is there due to evermoist organics.

Now think of organics (food odds, leaves) outdoors in the landfill lying together with municipal wastes – batteries, crushed mercury bulbs or thermometers and other. Since there is no artificial cover, precipitations like rain and snow soak into pile and corrode battery shells. All the substances freed – heavy metals, acids – dissolve in water and concentrate underneath in a lethal shake – filtrate, that is.

Refuse dumps have filtrate draining systems and a special protective undercover. But a landfill in Makukhivka is not a refuse dump and, consequently, it does not have all this blessings. So extremely toxic liquid pollutes soils and subterranean waters. In spring, when precipitation is rich, filtrate lake is overfilled and poured into river Kolomak which in turn flows into Vorskla.

All mentioned facts profoundly prove the high timeliness of waste management in Poltava. Any human activity generates wastes, we can not do away with it, yet we can start sorting it, thus decreasing the amount of discarded stuff and increasing the voluime of recycled matter. 

We can decrease the number of disposable goods non-liable to recycling in Ukraine, demand modern waste management system from our governments, parliament, and local self-government. We may as well refuse to vote for politicians who do not want to solve these issues by passing strong laws, recultivating landfills and search for investments into recycling. This is the main role of every Ukrainian citizen and citizens of Poltava in particular.

Written within the project «Environmental and social discrimination by the fact of living near landfill», supported by International Fund “Vidrodzhennya”

By: Avramenko Yuliya