Ternopil—Young residents of Ternonpil do not even remember that their city used to have the status of Ukraine’s cleanest city. I’m not going to describe how public utility services are operating or speak about environmental awareness that is lacking among the residents. Any region must be having these problems. A much worse situation has developed in Ternopil: it has no place to dump the trash. The dumping place in the village of Malashivtsi (Ternopil raion) is overfilled, and the waste products that have been dumped there for decades threaten to contaminate the city’s water supply system because Ternopil’s water scoop is located nearby.
Although the dump was officially closed in 1988, and in 2006 a ban on dumping garbage there was issued again, Ternopil’s public utility services are still using it. They are violating the bans because there is no alternative. The tax police have fined the municipal automotive transport company run by the city council for 11,000 hryvnias, which caused a strike of garbage truck drivers. Both the city and oblast authorities see the construction of a waste recycling plant as a way out of the vicious circle. However, the sum needed for this project is 12 times the entire annual budget of Ternopil oblast.
“I won’t resolve this question merely using budget money. I need investments,” says Yurii Chyzhmar, head of the Ternopil Oblast State Administration.
Nobody can predict the outcome of negotiations with investors. The talks on building of a recycling company have been held for several years. However, for environmental reasons no village council agrees to give a land plot to be used as the construction site. Therefore, the most recent session of the Ternopil Oblast Council voted to hold an extra examination of the Malashivtsi dump. But will it break the vicious circle?
