Children are agents of change. How separate waste collection works in schools of Mykolaiv

3% for recycling

In 2019, Ukraine ranked 9th in the ranking of countries with the highest amount of garbage per capita. Every day, the average Ukrainian produces about 1 kg of garbage, and industrial waste per capita is about 30 kg. The vast majority of the waste goes to landfills: organized or illegal. And only about 3% of waste in Ukraine goes to recycling. Low levels of waste recycling are a common problem for the entire post-Soviet countries. Although collecting waste paper was almost a national obligation in the USSR, the low number of consumer goods and the meager amount of plastic in everyday products simply didn't drive the need for a wide network of recycling plants. Even today, not all countries of the former USSR have open statistics on waste collection, recycling, and disposal, which speak volumes about the scale of the problem.