More than Two Years of Disputes: Why Zhytomyr Officials Needed Coercion to Remove the Trash

However, the road to that outcome proved long and painful: instead of simply doing their job, city authorities had to involve the prosecutor’s office, go through the courts, and wait for the enforcement service to intervene. What is wrong with the work of local officials and how many similar dumps still remain in the community — read on.

Chronicle of the scandal: how the landfill waited years to be cleaned up

The story began back in March 2024, when the State Ecological Inspection of the Polissia District discovered a huge pile of garbage on the city outskirts. By June, environmental inspectors had officially appealed to the Executive Committee of Zhytomyr City Council demanding the problem be resolved.

But the matter did not progress beyond words. Officials ignored the appeals, even though organizing the removal and cleaning of household waste is the direct and unequivocal duty of any local self-government body under the law “On Local Self-Government in Ukraine.”

Because no one responded to the requests, the inspection was forced to submit the materials to the prosecutor’s office. Zhytomyr District Prosecutor’s Office filed a lawsuit against the city executive committee for inaction. The court proceedings took a long time:

In September 2025, the Zhytomyr District Administrative Court fully sided with the ecologists and found the executive committee’s inaction unlawful.

The city authorities tried to appeal this decision, but in February 2026 the Seventh Administrative Court of Appeal dismissed the complaint.

The garbage was finally removed only after the case was carried through to completion by the state enforcement service.

Bitter statistics: how many more such landfills are there in Zhytomyr

As noted by the head of the SEI of the Polissia District, Yevhenii Medvedovskyi, what is most surprising is not even the problem itself, but the time spent on elementary things: