From 12 to 19 September, a training programme was held in Sweden for representatives of local authorities from the Ivano-Frankivsk Cluster, the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional Military Administration and the WM4U team. The participants learnt about Sweden’s experience in waste management, approaches to developing the cluster concept, inter-municipal cooperation and improving household waste management planning.
The training took place in the cities of Lund, Malmö and Helsingborg and focused on the operation and closure of landfill sites, their subsequent maintenance and ensuring appropriate environmental standards. In practice, representatives of the Ivano-Frankivsk cluster examined issues relating to the collection and management of leachate and landfill gas, the extraction of valuable resources from the landfill body, and the organisation of work with hazardous waste.
During the training, the communities had the opportunity to learn from the Swedish experience of launching a process for treating bio-waste (food waste and green waste) without the need for significant investment. Particular attention was paid to the separate collection of household, food and green waste. Participants explored approaches to communicating with residents, ensuring the quality of sorted waste and organising its subsequent processing.
“We can set up collection points; we can put up the necessary stickers, pictograms and diagrams. We can think through many things, but we cannot match the Swedes in any respect. Therefore, our task is to learn and adapt. It’s a long road ahead, but we’re ready,” says Rostyslav Zaremba, head of the Bohorodchany community, sharing his impressions of the visit.
Drawing on Swedish experience could, in the early stages, provide a much-needed impetus for the introduction of separate collection and the subsequent management of bio-waste in communities.
An important part of the training involved working on inter-municipal cooperation within the framework of the cluster concept. Swedish experts outlined the benefits and challenges of municipalities working together, whilst participants identified the first steps towards launching such cooperation. Separate discussions focused on how to organise separate collection and the management of waste streams within the cluster, particularly taking into account logistics and forecasting waste volumes and composition.
The study visit provided an opportunity to combine learning from the Swedish experience with work on practical solutions for the Ivano-Frankivsk cluster. Following the visit, participants identified issues for further consideration, potential pilot initiatives and next steps in the development of inter-municipal cooperation and the cluster concept.
The event was held within the Swedish-Ukrainian WM4U Programme, which aims to support the development of modern, systemic, and environmentally responsible waste management solutions at local, regional and national levels.The programme is funded by the Government of Sweden through Sida and led by Avfall Sverige and SALAR International.