As Russia's military invasion continues in Ukraine, dealing with large amounts of debris has become an issue. Officials from the Ukrainian government and local governments visited Okuma Town in Fukushima Prefecture to see work being done to store and dispose of waste. I inspected the site.
The visit was planned by JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency), which continues to support reconstruction efforts in Ukraine, and was attended by eight officials from the Ukrainian government as well as from the southern Kherson Oblast and other areas.
The officials visited a temporary waste storage site in the difficult-to-return area of Okuma Town, Fukushima Prefecture.
At this facility, waste generated when houses and other buildings were demolished following the accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is separated into types such as concrete and metal.
The group observed the state of waste storage and the work involved in mechanically crushing wood into small pieces and transporting them to a processing plant.
According to a person in charge of the Ukrainian government, a large amount of rubble from destroyed buildings has been stored in temporary storage sites in Ukraine since Russia's military invasion began, but sufficient progress has not been made to dispose of it.
A person in charge of the Ukrainian government involved in recovery and reconstruction said, ``Ukraine has little experience in debris disposal, so the experience we had in Japan is valuable.It was meaningful to be able to actually see the operation of temporary storage sites and the process of disposal.'' I was talking.
Ai Koga from JICA's Global Environment Department said, ``I want people to take what they saw at the site back and use it for local treatment.''
Regarding the reconstruction of Ukraine, the Japanese government will invite Ukrainian government officials to Tokyo for a meeting on the 19th of this month.