Today, Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi met with the Mayor of the Austrian city of Grafenwert Alfred Riedl.
At the meeting, they discussed the UNBROKEN ecosystem of assistance to Ukrainians and strengthening cooperation with Austrian cities to share experiences and provide even greater support to Ukraine in times of war.
“Every day we have new wounded from different regions of Ukraine. And every day I wonder what else to rebuild and do to help everyone. Therefore, your advice and assistance will be very useful,” said Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi.
The mayor then proposed the idea of organising a large forum with all Austrian and Ukrainian cities to share experiences and develop new ideas. He also suggested holding a conference with the mayors of Austrian cities.
The guest supported the idea and noted that they are constantly looking for opportunities to deepen Austrian understanding of what is really happening in Ukraine, that the war has not stopped, and people continue to suffer. After all, Austrians will donate less over time, so we need to constantly remind them of the war. And it would be a good opportunity to spread the word about UNBROKEN at the regional level so that every Austrian could get involved.
Afterwards, they talked about other topics, including waste management. Alfred Riedl spoke about the Austrian experience and how cities receive energy and heat through waste recycling.
“We cooperate with Ukrainian cities in many areas, including waste recycling and waste removal. In 2019, everything related to garbage in Austria gained a new momentum. The key is that we have instilled as much as possible in children, and very often it is children who teach their parents how to sort waste. This means that most of the waste is recycled, and a very small proportion is disposed of. There are two large waste processing plants in Lower Austria, which heat the largest region. In general, we have several large enterprises that process waste into energy and heat,” said Alfred Riedl, Mayor of Grafenwert.
The guest also told the story of a plant in Vienna that suffered a fire in the 1980s and was rebuilt by an architect. He set two conditions: freedom in design and state-of-the-art filtration systems. And it is these innovations that have made it possible to make utilities the cheapest for residents in the area.
Two years ago, Alfred Riedl also met with Andriy Sadovyi in Lviv to discuss deepening cooperation between Ukrainian and Austrian municipalities as part of the United for Ukraine initiative.