There are many uncertainties in the sphere of accumulating and utilization of industrial waste and they require the closest attention. The word “waste” is only nominal in this context, because most of the “waste” has a resource value. For example, EU coun
WASTE TO BRING IN PROFIT
WASTE TO BRING IN PROFIT
There are many uncertainties in the sphere of
accumulating and utilization of industrial waste and they require the closest attention.
The word “waste” is only nominal in this context, because most of the “waste” has
a resource value. For example, EU countries recycle around 56-80% of all the industrial
waste. The USA utilizes industrial waste to make 20% of all its aluminum, 33% of iron, 50%
of lead and zinc and 44% of copper as well as a lot of other useful components…
Two of the most negative factors in this sphere in Ukraine
are a lack of current assets experienced by consumers and unreasonable transport policy.
For example, railway tariff accounts for up to 98% in the price for industrial slags.
Metallurgical slag is one of the most useful secondary raw materials. Let us take the year
1990 as the base year for comparison with the current situation. In 1990, the level of
utilization of blast-furnace slag was 114.9% and that of steel-smelting slag – 107%,
which means that the current output of slag was reprocessed completely and, in addition to
that, a portion of accumulated dumped slag was also utilized. According to the forecast,
at the end of 2000, these two figures may be as low as 45.2% and 30.6%. The unused portion
of slag, which adds up to 10.5 million tonnes will be accumulated in waste dumps. On the
one hand, this situation will negatively affect the smelting process, because there will
be no space to pile up this slag. On the other hand, the harmful effect on the environment
will increase and so will the expenses for slag storage.
At the same time, the State Road-Construction Research
Institute (GosdorNII) has concluded that, as compared with the natural crushed stone,
utilization of slag for road construction may drive the expenses 1.5-2.5 times down. The
economic effect is estimated at UAH (Ukrainian hryvnyas) 100,000 per 1 km of road
constructed. In addition, a number of slag types contain up to 15% of metals. The ideal
way of slag utilization would be to construct special slag-recycling plants, which is,
unfortunately, impossible at present. Thus, other organizational, legal, and economic
mechanisms ought to be implemented in order to reanimate this promising resource-saving
sector of economy.
In this regard, it is necessary to draw the public
attention to the intention of the Ministry of Ecology and Resource Economy to more than
double the ecological fees charged for laying-up of industrial waste. The declared purpose
for such a measure is to increase the financial means available for the Environment
Protection Fund (EPF) in order to resolve the urgent environmental problems in Ukraine.
However, it is not clear what mechanism will be employed and specifically on what purposes
the raised funds will be spent. It is possible that the authors of the new initiative do
not quite understand that this measure can bring more harm than benefit. An increase in
ecological fees will drive the cost of product up, which, in turn, will limit competition
on this market segment.
The executive directorate of the Association of Ferrous
Metallurgical Enterprises and its structural subdivision – the Department for secondary
resources – have scheduled a complex of measures that aim at breaking the deadlock thus
allowing the enterprises to successfully deal with utilization of secondary resources.
Consultations were held with heads of metallurgical mills. With their help, the most
important problems were singled out. At the same time, the Association’s representatives
discussed these problems with members of corresponding committees of the Supreme Council
of Ukraine and specialists of the Cabinet of Ministers, the Ministry of Economy, the
Ministry of Ecology and Resource Economy, and the Ministry of Transport. Such integrated
mills as Azovstal, Ilyicha, Krivorozhstal, and Zaporozhstal provided the Association with
the necessary information and support. The suggested changes are as follows. Slag derived
from steel and iron production should be excluded from the list of hazardous waste types.
Lowered railway tariffs for slag transportation and tax incentives should be introduced.
Ecological fees for slag storage and its cross-border transportation should be revoked. As
a result of this petition, the Cabinet of Ministers has already excluded granular slag and
slag derived from iron and steel production from the list of hazardous types of waste.
Also, the Ministry of Transport has introduced the coefficient of 0.614 to calculate the
reduced railway tariff for slag transportation.
The ministry of Economy has agreed to include metallurgical
slag into the list of resource-containing waste that fall under privileged taxation terms.
However, the practice indicates that these measures are far from sufficient. The most
important factor for successful waste utilization is when allied industries (construction,
road-building, and industry of construction materials) aim at taking full advantage of
this valuable source of secondary raw materials. A lot of efforts are made to resolve this
problem jointly with representatives of the allied industries.
As of today, the country has the following legal documents
that regulate waste utilization.
Pursuant to articles 5 and 26 of the Law of Ukraine “On
Wastes”, the Cabinet of Ministers enacted regulation №20354 dated November 11, 1999,
which introduced the system of State record-keeping and pasportization of wastes. The
state standards are one of the key elements of this system:
GSTU (State Standard of Ukraine) 2195-99 (based on GOST
(State Standard of the Soviet Union) 17.9.0.2-99) Environmental protection. Waste
treatment. Waste’s technical passport. Its contents and rules for making changes to it.
GSTU 3910-99 (GOST 17.9.1.1-99) Environmental protection.
Waste treatment. Waste classification. Names of waste types according to genetic principle
and rules of their assignment to specific categories.
GSTU 3911-99 (GOST 17.9.0.1-99) Environmental protection.
Waste treatment. Detection of waste and provision of information on waste. General
regulations enacted by the order №97 of the State Standard of Ukraine dated February 2,
2000.
The Department for secondary resources has launched an
ecological management system. In particular, the department calculates the losses caused
by enterprises’ inadequacy to ecological requirements. This is done with the goal of
updating and improving the legislative regulations in the spheres of resource economy and
environment protection as well as in order to introduce the system of ecological audit in
Ukraine. This direction has indicated a number of positive developments. Ukraine was the
first among the CIS countries to implement ISO 14000 standards into the system of State
Standards of Ukraine. The Cabinet of Ministers enacted a number of regulations with the
purpose of harmonizing the national environment-protection legislation with the European
standards.
The Association, jointly with regional and local
authorities, is currently lobbying the following changes and amendments to the waste
legislation currently in force. Slag formed in the process of steel and iron smelting, as
well as graphite-containing waste, should be included in the list of resource-containing
waste types that fall under tax incentives. Not only the enterprises that “render
services on waste collection and storage” should be able to enjoy privileged terms but
also those that implement technology and put into operation equipment for waste treatment
and recycling. Enterprises that utilize resource-containing waste in