At a meeting on Wednesday, February 19, the Cabinet of Ministers considered and approved a draft law “On Prevention, Reduction and Control of Industrial Pollution”, which will be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada in the near future.
The Prime Minister of Ukraine Oleksiy Honcharuk announced this in a Telegram.
“Another step to reduce industrial pollution. They approved the bill “On prevention, reduction and control of industrial pollution”, – Goncharuk wrote.
According to him, this draft law proposes to introduce an integrated permit for large enterprises, which are the largest polluters of the environment.
“An integrated permit is a list of pollution requirements and measures needed to reduce the environmental impact of businesses. In the EU, all large enterprises are required to obtain such a permit, ”the head of government explained.
He also noted that enterprises should monitor emissions and report annually on compliance with the integrated permit. If an enterprise does not report, systematically violates the permit conditions, or fails to comply with its conditions, it may revoke the integrated permit. This means that the operation of the enterprise will be stopped until all conditions of the permit have been fulfilled.
Goncharuk is convinced that the introduction of this permit will facilitate the modernization of production and the introduction of new best available technologies. It will also reduce industrial pollution, improve the environment and human health.
After all, he added, according to the Institute of Health Assessment and Measurement, in 2016 in Ukraine atmospheric air pollution led to over 58,000 deaths. Globally, environmental pollution causes about 16% of premature deaths annually.