The last time Lviv resident Andrii Vyshnevskyi went hiking in the Carpathians, he was surprised not only by the striking views of Ukraine’s western mountain range, but also by the amount of garbage he found there.
There was so much trash that Vyshnevskyi simply could not pick it all up himself. But he knew exactly how to ask for help.
Vyshnevskyi took some pictures of the garbage and published them to EcoHike, a recently-launched mobile application that aims to help people clean up the Carpathians and other parts of Ukraine.
It is designed as a virtual map where people mark trash-strewn locations in Ukraine, in order to draw attention to the problem of garbage, encourage people to clean it up, and help volunteers easily find places in need of cleaning.
The application was created by Ukrainian developers from the international IT company GlobalLogic and launched at the end of July 2019. A week later, EcoHike had been downloaded by over 1,000 smartphone users from across Ukraine.
“I think it is a good idea and this application will be useful for the society,” Vyshnevskyi says.
He hopes that people who care about the environment will go and help collect trash in that area he marked on the map. “If not, the next time I go hiking, I will plan the route to come back there and finish cleaning it myself,” he says.
Trash disposal has become a global crisis. As the world struggles to fight global heating and deal with the climate crisis, and as governments introduce some new laws to reduce waste, Ukrainians are also taking some steps to tackle their own garbage and plastic pollution.
EcoHike is just one of many inventive ways that this is happening. Today, Ukrainian companies, cafes, and fashion brands are starting to use and sell eco-friendly products, recycle and promote sustainable consumption. Some are getting particularly creative in their approach.
Smartphones help clean
The idea for EcoHike came when GlobalLogic’s Ukrainian team went hiking on Khomiak mountain in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, some 630 kilometers west of Kyiv. Vladyslav Tkachuk, the marketing manager of EcoHike, says the team found lots of garbage “right in the middle of the beautiful natural landscape.”
“We got an idea to create an application that could unite the efforts of people who love nature,” Tkachuk says.
It took them over a year to develop and launch the application. EcoHike is part of their company’s corporate social responsibility program, and the team worked on the project in their spare time, Tkachuk says.
Now, the application can be downloaded for free from the App Store or Play Market. It has a simple design and is currently available in the Ukrainian and English languages.
To report a place in need of clean-up, one must take photos of the polluted spot, mark the place on the map, and write a brief description of the problem.
But Tkachuk says there are several ways to use the app. Some people use it to mark the place they want to clean, but do not have the necessary equipment at the moment. Others mark polluted spots to notify other users that these places need to be cleaned.
“Often, people who go hiking simply don’t know that some 100 meters from their route there is a pile of garbage that they can clean up,” Tkachuk says.
Apart from that, the app can also be used to mark places where illegal logging is occurring — a serious problem in Ukraine — and to show the amount of garbage that can be found across the country.
“(EcoHike) helps in raising people’s awareness and brings more attention to the problems we have,” Vyshnevskyi says.
Even though there are currently only 19 entries on the map, Tkachuk says it is just the beginning and he hopes that EcoHike will unite Ukrainians who want to make their country cleaner.
Apart from that, Tkachuk says that some local travel companies plan to use the application for their hiking trips around the Carpathians in order to help clean the area.
“This is an instrument that unites people, as we believe there are many people who are ready to help the environment,” he says.
Clothes from plastic
Another way to make the world cleaner is to reduce the usage of plastic or to recycle it. Two Ukrainian clothing brands are now giving waste plastic a second life in fashionable outfits.
In July, the Odesa-based company Omnia started a campaign on the U.S.-based Kickstarter crowdfunding platform and presented a dress made from plastic and waste found in the ocean.
The brand planned to raise $3,000 to produce more such dresses. Instead, they eventually raised over $63,000 from 544 backers all around the globe.
The brand’s founder, Evelin Evy, says that the dress itself is sewn from fabric made of recycled plastic, but it does not look different from other clothing.
“One would never say it is made from plastic,” Evy says.
It is the threads that make the material special. They are made from plastic that was found in the ocean, then cleaned and crushed into dust, and eventually turned into thread. Evy says her company purchased the textiles in China as they simply are not produced in Ukraine.
Recycled plastic makes up 60 percent of each Omnia dress. According to Evy, it is an amount comparable to six medium-sized plastic bottles. She views Omnia’s work as a small effort to improve the environment.
“With such small steps, we can change the situation,” Evy says.
The dress costs $99 (over Hr 2,500) and is offered in several colors and sizes.
Apart from that, the Kyiv-based brand U.R.SO, which designs underwear and swimwear, also uses waste plastic in its bathing suits. The brand purchases fabric made of recycled plastic and textile waste in Italy.
The brand’s co-founder, Lana Barabanova, says that, despite some public prejudice against wearing recycled materials, the fabric is of high quality and is completely safe.
The swimsuits are offered in four different colors. Each costs Hr 2,700 (over $100).
Barabanova says they always wanted to make their production more eco-friendly and decided to create such swimwear as “it might be the only possible way to manufacture something in the future.”
“I think that over time, all brands will switch to using such fabrics because we no longer have options,” Barabanova says.
Other approaches
The Kyiv restaurant Altruist has also decided to fight the overuse of plastic.
For over a month, employees of the restaurant, which serves Middle Eastern cuisine, have been collecting bottle caps from their guests. They want to use these caps to create something beautiful and useful and to urge people to reduce waste.
They succeeded. In March 2019, Altruist handed over 300 kilograms of plastic bottle caps to the Kyiv-based No Waste Ukraine organization. It recycled the caps. Then, the Odesa-based Precious Plastic company turned them into a bench.
The plastic bench is now located close to the restaurant and shows all its customers and passers-by what can be created out of plastic waste.
It’s an ethos Altruist shares with EcoHike, Omnia, and U.R.SO.
“Now is the time that everyone should think about the environmental friendliness of all of their actions,” says U.R.SO’s Barabanova.
