Ukraine is a leading European waste producer. Experts of the Clean City National Project estimate that 4 percent of our country is covered with waste. It makes up for about 350 kilograms of waste per capita, and adds up to an area the size of Cyprus. Unfortunately, national waste production increases by an average of 1.5 to 2.5 percent a year, having already reached 14 million tons. Having such a huge amount of waste production, Ukraine has no waste processing plants. There are only 2 incinerators, 15 sorting lines, more than 32,000 illegal dumps and over 6,000 landfills, totaling 7,400 hectares, of which only half have been certified. Only 5 percent of the waste is currently processed, while remaining 95 percent is taken to landfills.
According to official statistics, individual residents produce most waste at 60 percent, followed by legal entities and government agencies with smaller amounts of 30 and 10 percent, respectively... Previous attempts to introduce separate waste collection practices failed to reach the public, because, after all, the waste which citizens did painstakingly separate was still going to the same landfill afterwards...
