An international study visit to Austria (Rossatz-Arnsdorf and Mautern, Sankt Pölten, Ansfelden) for the representatives of the Odesa, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts to study the best practices of household waste management was held within the frames of the U-LEAD with Europe Programme on 5-9 August.

“Austrian experience impressed,” says Oleksandr Svystun, director of the Zaporizhzhia Local Government Development Centre, established with the support of the U-LEAD with Europe Programme and MinRegion. “We visited sorting and waste recycling enterprises, maintained ideally tidy with no smell. The hromadas that participated on behalf of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast, namely, the Kyrylivska and Shyrokivska AHs, as well as Melitopol, benefited from this trip, since they could see in their own eyes the work of the household waste management system in Austrian communes. Though they went to get ideas, but returned with the realistic plans for the nearest future.

The Austrian waste management system is based upon the creation of all the conditions for sorting garbage, starting with separate containers for each type of waste. Each town has a waste sorting unit, and even liquid waste (for example, vegetable oil) is sorted. And people learn to take a responsible attitude since kindergarten times – there is a special curriculum for that.”

The participants of the study visit to Austria plan to apply to the U-LEAD with Europe Programme with the request to provide expert support in writing the concept of a household waste management strategy.

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