Circular economy and Zero Waste Cities in Ukraine | Zero Waste Europe 

On May 1, the Zero Waste Cities in Ukraine project was launched in Ukraine with the financial support of the European Union’s LIFE Programme, which aims to support local governments in implementing new legislative requirements in the field of waste management.The project is coordinated by the research institution Landscape Laboratory of Guimaraes — Association for the Promotion of Sustainable Development (Portugal). In Ukraine, the project was initiated and is now being implemented by the Zero Waste Alliance Ukraine.Beneficiaries of the project are four Ukrainian municipalities — Lutsk, Kherson, Pokrovsk (Donetsk region) and Liubotyn (Kharkiv region) — which will work together with partners for four years to build a sustainable waste management system to achieve the status of “Zero Waste City”.The European partners of Ukrainian cities in the project will be the municipalities of Guimaraes (Portugal), Oeiras (Portugal) and Carmignano (Italy), as well as the Hamburg Institute for Innovation, Climate Protection and Circular Economy (HiiCCE) (German), NGO Zero Waste Europe (Belgium) and NGO Zero Waste Italy (Italy). The network of European cities “Eurocities” and their pilot project “Sustainable rebuilding of Ukrainian Cities” contributed to the creation of the project consortium.Project implementation on the ground will be support by Ukrainian public organizations namely NGO Zero Waste Lutsk, NGO Ecological News, NGO Zero Waste Mariupol and NGO Zero Waste Kharkiv.The representatives of Ukrainian cities, the project team, and partners face the following tasks:

• assess the current state of the waste management system in four Ukrainian municipalities participating in the project;
• strengthen the institutional capacity of local governments of Ukrainian cities through comprehensive training;
• develop waste management strategies based on the Zero Waste principles for the four Ukrainian municipalities to ensure long-term planning;
• implement infrastructure pilot projects in four Ukrainian cities that will contribute to the development of a sustainable waste management system in municipalities and can be scaled up and replicated by other Ukrainian cities.

The project consortium combines the practical knowledge and experience of European municipalities, expertise of research institutions and NGOs to ensure that the project goals are achieved.The results of the project will be developed waste management strategies for four Ukrainian cities, institutionally capable communities to implement them, launched pilot infrastructure projects, and established cooperation between Ukrainian and European participating cities.

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