Primary reasons of the environmental disaster in Dnepropetrovsk region
16:30 01.09.11
- Health, quantity of life of the region’s inhabitants, environment and resource conservation are not the priorities of the regional authorities’ policy.
- Absence of clear orienting points in the regional development, which would have provided for the economic growth, on the one hand, and the growth in prosperity of people, environment conservation and natural resources recovery, on the other hand.
- General lack of the efficient system of the regional government control over the compliance and carrying-out environment requirements on the use of land, mineral resources, surface and underground waters, green planting, atmospheric air and forest.
- More than 80% of all regional production capacities are owned by several families aimed at profit maximization, rather than solution of environmental questions of local citizens, their health promotion and natural environment conservation.
- No quality control systems as regards air, soil, surface and underground waters, drinking water, foodstuffs; control over generation, disposal, destruction and utilization of processing and household wastes is also not in place. Special attention should be paid to the absence of control over dioxins, furans, benzapyrenes and lead in the atmosphere, as well as electromagnetic, acoustic and ionizing radiation in the areas of compact settlements and work of the region inhabitants.
- Over 50% of the regional economy is shadow. Correspondently, a major part of various manufactures (in particular, environmentally hazardous ones) go under the radar of the regulatory bodies and public, thus resulting in significant environmental pollution and harm to the health of people.
- The regional economy is based upon obsolete, inefficient and environmentally destructive technologies, which leads to the ongoing environmental degradation, low quality and high cost products, substantial material and energy costs.
- Production capacities and technical capabilities for the destruction or utilization of many hazardous wastes are not available in the region. There is no management strategy for processing and household wastes, in particular toxic ones. Economic interest in maximum possible waste utilization as secondary raw materials is lacking. These actions are taken only on paper. Thus, processed lead/acid and alkaline electrolytes, oils, lead containing slag, mercury and mercury-vapor lamps, auto-tyre casing, pesticides, etc. are neither destroyed nor utilized. In addition, car wash and utility sludge, toxic manure from poultry factories, galvanic slimes and numerous other hazardous wastes are not recovered.
- In most cases, all levels soviets include deputies, who are the owners of polluters or representatives thereof. The main deputies’ task is lobbying the environmentally destructive activities of their enterprises, minimizing the transfer to the budget of funds for the environmental pollution and receiving different bonuses.
- Economic incentives and state strategy in the sphere of modernization and ecologization of obsolete and resource-intensive technologies of most of the regional manufactures are not in place.
- No effective management system in the environmental safety and natural resources utilization, negligence of majority of official bodies in environmental problems, hesitance of public environmental organizations.
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