An eco-project on electronic waste management culture has been launched in Ukraine.
The first social eco-educational project on the culture of behavior and collection of electronic waste E-waste Ukraine has started in Ukraine.
The project was presented at Ukrinform by the NGO Let's Do It GREEN Ukraine.
"This project is designed to overcome one of the most acute challenges of our time - to organize a systematic mass collection of electronic waste and to introduce a culture of conscious consumption and handling of the most relevant type of waste today. The project starts today and will last throughout 2021. It will cover the most massive segment - the corporate sector and the social segment of the population. To increase the effectiveness of implementing a culture of electronic waste management, the E-Waste Ukraine program will start with general education schools and universities. The dynamics of technology development, digitalization processes, digital, distance education are directly related to the speed of production and circulation of electronic waste. We must give the most active category, agents of change, which will be children and adolescents, the opportunity to build a new ecological future and create conditions for achieving sustainable development of society and the country. The pilot project starts in 12 regions, in each city 10 pilot general education schools and 3 universities will be selected. For youth leaders, 4-month educational training programs will be introduced, during which they will receive basic knowledge - what electronic waste is and its impact on humans and the environment, what is the role of each person in the formation and accumulation of electronic waste, what volume of this waste each person creates, what is conscious consumption of e-waste - and practical and creative tasks for pumping the acquired knowledge. At the end of the year, winners will be determined in the nominations E-Waste leader, E-waste School Hero. The final stage of the project will be the installation of containers for collecting small non-working equipment in the winning cities. The information and educational campaign throughout Ukraine will primarily involve young people in forming a culture of electronic waste management and will create a social infrastructure for further comprehensive development of this industry in Ukraine, which means increasing the level of environmental awareness, environmental cleanliness, economic progress and investment attractiveness, achieving sustainable development goals," said Anna Radchenko, President of NGO Let's Do It GREEN Ukraine.
According to her, today in Ukraine, almost 28.5 kg of electronic waste per person has an irreparable impact on the environment and the health of Ukrainians, and there is no infrastructure for electronic waste management.
"We are very interested in implementing such projects in general education schools, primarily in primary grades, where they will be taught to sort garbage and one of the options will be the disposal and handling of electronic waste. Children love this very much, and through them we will have an impact on adults in the future. One cannot fail to note the economic component of this project, because if we create a normal platform for the disposal of electronic waste, it can become a good challenge for foreign investors," said Andriy Vagin, Deputy Head of the Department of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Kyiv City State Administration.
Andriy Nemyrivsky, advisor to the head of the State Environmental Inspectorate, drew attention to the fact that Ukraine lacks a legislative framework and appropriate capacities for processing electronic waste.
"We accumulate a very large amount of electronic waste, but there is no legislative framework that needs to be urgently implemented. The fact that young people are involved is good, but we still need to change the legislation. In many countries that are engaged in the processing of electronic waste, hundreds of billions of dollars of the state budget are involved in this business. These are countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, China. Therefore, the introduction of processing in our country will be very significant and will give a great impetus to the economy," he believes.
Meanwhile, Yuriy Nosachenko, director of the NPP "Ecological Laboratory", who has been engaged in the processing of electronic waste since 2006, cited terrible data on environmental pollution by this type of waste.
"Only one AA battery pollutes 20 square meters of soil. In the total volume of garbage that enters the landfill, electronic waste accounts for only 6-8% of the specific weight, but this seemingly insignificant amount gives 40% of heavy metals that enter groundwater and our body from the landfill. Therefore, the issue of electronic waste disposal is extremely urgent," he stressed.
As the organizers noted, the goal of the E-waste Ukraine project is to form a national culture of electronic waste management, to create and systematize a system of eco-education and electronic waste management in society through the education of children and youth.
NGO Let's do It GREEN Ukraine is the largest all-Ukrainian public eco-organization that creates and implements youth, educational, social, infrastructure, research projects in the field of ecology and sustainable development. The organization is a co-founder of the social action "Let's make Ukraine clean together". It is based in Kyiv, has 12 regional branches, 8 children's eco-clubs and unites about 5000 volunteers throughout Ukraine.
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