In framework of permanent cooperation with United Nations’ structures our Association sent submission for UN Human Rights Council’s Advisory Committee for preparation of its study on the implications of plastic pollution for the full enjoyment of human rights.
The ARC’s submission prepared by Anna Prykhodko, Olesya Tsybulko and other experts and published at the UN official web sources described the situation with plastic at the Crimean peninsula, namely the issue of relevant intentional and organized Russia’s policy, that violate brutally the collective and individual rights to safe environment, sustainable development and ecologic information.
The ARC’s submission stressed that the Crimea’s communal infrastructures is degrading since 2014 in conditions of increasing corruption in the local Russia-controlled “administrations” and of the permanent changes of Russia-appointed “heads” of the Crimean cities and towns.
The ARC’s submission added that waste management policy of Russian de-facto authorities in 2015-2026 was realized without any planning or qualified regulation. It causes situation of ongoing garbage filling not only the numerous Crimean landfill but also cities, towns and settlements of peninsula.
At same time main Crimea’s garbage tycoons, closely connected with such “administration”, has no any interest in own business procedures’ modernization, acting via monopolized entities such as “Krymekoresursy” and “AltfaterKrym”.
The ARC’s submission pointed that scrapyards and landfills, full of plastic wastes, make deep negative impacts on the most vulnerable groups in the Crimean society, including youth and representatives of the indigenous Crimean Tatar People.
The ARC’s submission stressed that wastes’ policy of Russia’s “authorities” in the Crimea, including the plastic issues, has strong negative impacts on human rights including right to health, the right to a healthy environment, the right to life, health and adequate standard of living and dignity, the right to adequate food, the right to land and the right to safe drinking water, the right to meaningful and informed participation, the right to development, the rights of future generations etc.
The ARC’s submission added that Russia-controlled troops and mercenaries committed in Ukraine, during broadscale invasion, gross violation of international humanitarian law and international human rights’ law already, including environmental crimes.
It should be noted that this interaction between experts and UN bodies has become especially urgent now that, by early June, due to the negligence and widespread corruption of Crimean collaborators, Crimean settlements are literally drowning in household waste, including plastic.
