On December 19, 2019, OSCE consultants, Ecoplatform experts, presented the research results on 7 TMFs operation of 3 enterprises located in Donetsk region.

200 waste storage facilities of Donbass contain almost 1 billion tons of industrial waste from coal, metallurgy, energy, chemical and other industries. 75 objects are located in the government-controlled territory.

The researched TMFs are in the gray zone under the threat of military actions. Secure access to the objects is one of the main issue: the operational staff is unable to monitor, to inspect the structures' technical condition and to perform the repair work.

The proximity to the contact line poses the risks of turning existing hazards from TMFs with significant amount of toxic waste into the environmental disasters, including transboundary scale. And all relevant services must be properly prepared to such emergency.

Interaction between TMF operators and state emergency services should be the key issue of accident prevention in the armed conflict area.

Participants also defined the urgent need to direct the efforts of all parties to search for hazardous waste processing/ neutralization technologies and establish the dams' stability monitoring system.

IT IS THE JOINT ISSUE

The research was performed within the framework of the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine project "Assistance in the Donbas environmental monitoring system expansion".