In Ukraine more then 80% of waste products are located on the dumps, which occupy considerable ground areas. Among existent 750 landfills (more exactly refuse dumps) many are filled up to 60-90% and some of them are already overfilled and are destined to closing. From year to year increase in quantity of waste products is observed and the problem of waste utilization is becoming more and more urgent.
The purpose of the work is to study the problem of lands guarding occupied by refuse dumps. It is also necessary to consider the problem of the solid domestic garbage use, to examine state-of-the-art of existent dumps monitoring and to study the methods of waste utilization.
The idea of the work is to study the world experience of problem solving concerning waste handling and taking as an example Donetsk city to offer and to substantiate the actions using for the purpose of prolongation of existent waste dumps’ operation life and to give proof of alternative variant for waste utilization.
In order to attain the assigned aim it is necessary to decide the following goals:
1. To investigate and to analyze normative and legal base in the area regarding handling of solid domestic garbage in Ukraine.
2. To investigate the present situation of the places where refuse wastes are removed in Donetsk city.
3. To study other countries’ experience concerning problem solving of waste utilization.
4. To develop the proposals regarding prolongation of existent waste dumps’ operation life, choice of the place for new landfill building.
The object of the research is the modern methods of lands’ guarding from waste pollution and providing environmental safety for citizens.
The scientific novelty of the master’s paper consists in development of systems approach to the problem solving of waste products’ handling thanks to study and introduction of world experience of waste utilization.
The methods of recultivation and prolongation of waste dumps’ operation life will be offered for the existent junkyards. The proposals concerning introduction of the alternative methods of waste utilization will be offered on the ground of investigation of other countries’ experience in the area of waste handling. And these factors will lead to more rational use of lands.
The fundamentals and results of the work were reported at the scientific students’ conferences in 2008 and 2009.
The observation of the most widespread methods of the garbage removal can be found in quantity of research papers and publications [1-4,6].
Different literary and internet resources are dedicated to the general type of issue of environment pollution in the area of landfills’ influence [10-12].
It is necessary to mark out the works of T.A. Orlova [7,8] concerning waste removal to the landfills and refuse dumps. Her works deal with the state of the lands occupied by the objects of waste disposal giving an instance the situation in Crimea. The methods of polluted territories’ rehabilitation are shown in them.
The works by M.E. Kryanskiy are dedicated to the investigation of Donetsk region landfills. He pays special attention to the Larinskiy landfill of solid domestic garbage [5].
On the present moment in Donetsk city 3 landfills are used for the waste removal: Petrovskiy, Chulkovskiy and Larinskiy.
All these three landfills of the solid domestic garbage don’t correspond to the sanitary and environmental requirements which are made a great demand to the modern waste dumps. They aren’t equipped by the special protective screens, during their design sanitary protection zones aren’t complied, that’s why it would be true to name these places for waste removal as authorized dumps.
The main characteristics of these dumps are presented in the table 1 [13].
Table 1 - Data regarding volume of waste accumulated at the solid domestic garbage dumps in Donetsk city (01.01.2008)
| Dump’s description | Start of the work | Area, hectare | The total volume of the accumulated waste products,mln.m3 | Power reserve volume, thousand of cubic metres | Availability of legal documents on the land |
| Larinskaya | 1993 | 20 | 10,7 | exhausted | no |
| Petrovskaya | 1972 | 3,5 | 6,8 | 2000 | official act concerning the right on permanent use |
| Chulkovskaya | 1979 | 3,2 | 4,4 | 1000 | no |
| Total | - | 34,7 | 21,9 | 3000 | - |
Table 2 – Solid domestic garbage composition in several countries.
| Types of materials | USA | Europe | Korea | Ukraine |
| Paper | 38,1% | 33,5% | 27% | 5,9% |
| Large-size materials | 12,1% | 12,2% | - | - |
| Food / Organic waste products | 10,9% | 34,7% | 23% | 39,5% |
| Plastic | 10,5% | 11,6% | 7% | 6% |
| Metal | 7,8% | 5,3% | 9% | 4% |
| Rubber, leather, textile | 6,6% | - | 3% | 3% |
| Glass | 5,5% | 2,8% | 5% | 7,4% |
| Wood | 5,3% | 21% | 4% | 1,1% |
| Other | 3,2% | - | 20% | 33,1% |
From this table you can see that as in different countries as in Ukraine solid domestic garbage composition don’t differ in general, that’s why experience of these countries concerning waste utilization can be easily introduced in Ukraine.
In many developed countries incineration and stocking of garbage at the landfills become less and less popular method of waste utilization from year to year. It is explained by the fact that garbage stocking at the landfills requires lands of a very big area and incineration of garbage leads to the emission of large quantity of harmful substances into atmosphere. Waste composting and recycling become priority methods. It is impossible to refuse wholly from landfills because waste products will form even after recycling and waste composting. That’s why taking into consideration world experience regarding waste utilization we consider that raw material recycling and composting of the part of waste products at the landfills will the most acceptable methods for waste utilization in Donetsk city.
Hereinafter in the master’s paper it is necessary to retrace world experience concerning placement of garbage processing plants, where it will be better to place them - within the range of the city or beyond its bounds, what sanitary protection zone must be. On the ground of this information it is necessary to draw a conclusion about the correctness of the chosen place for plants’ placement which are planned according to Donetsk development plan. Besides garbage processing plants’ placement it is also necessary to consider the actions concerning prolongation of waste dumps’ operation life.