4.6 million tonnes of demolition waste have accumulated in Mykolaiv — it will take at least 10 years to process it all

Destroyed building at 43 Pohranychna Street in Mykolaiv, September 2024, photo: NikVesti

As of February 2026, 4.6 million tonnes of debris from the destruction had already accumulated in Mykolaiv.

This is stated in the article by NikVesti «Waste of war: can the plant in Mykolaiv keep up with the scale of destruction?»

Of this, the construction waste processing plant has processed 6,400 tonnes, according to the Department of Housing and Communal Services of the City Council in response to an information request from NikVesti. In fact, the plant has processed approximately 0.14% of the total amount of waste.

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The plant's total capacity to process debris is 40-50 thousand tonnes per month, explained Vitalii Shevchenko, director of the municipal enterprise ELU Avtodorig.

«We have a very large capacity to process recyclable raw materials. Compared to other cities, I believe that it is either the largest or among the top three. In fact, our capacity is to process up to 40-50 thousand tonnes per month of raw materials that can be recycled,» says Vitalii Shevchenko.

In fact, it would take the plant about 10 years to process 4.6 million tonnes of debris from the destruction in Mykolaiv.

However, the difficulty lies in the fact that construction waste must be sorted before processing, notes Vitalii Shevchenko, director of ELU Avtodorig. This process is done manually.

«Sorting means separating bricks and concrete, metal, wood, glass, and asbestos-containing slate from the pile. All of this must be manually measured with a dosimeter to ensure that asbestos levels do not exceed the norm. Only after that is it sorted manually and then sent for processing,» explained Vitalii Shevchenko.

The plant can currently sort a maximum of 10-15 thousand tonnes per month, he says. However, this is provided that there are enough people to carry out this process.

«Currently, there are only three sorters working there, but 40 people are needed to increase the pace to the capacity that is available for processing. It takes a lot of time,» explained Vitalii Shevchenko.

Recycling of demolition waste in Mykolaiv

The construction waste processing plant in Mykolaiv began operations in the spring of 2025. The project was implemented with the support of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which provided specialised equipment, while the site for the plant was equipped with funds from the city budget.

The equipment has the capacity to process about 12,000 tonnes of such waste per month, and the resulting material will be used for road repairs.

By the end of 2024, about 120,000 tonnes of construction waste had accumulated in Mykolaiv. As of January 2025, the plant had processed 4,500 tonnes of demolition waste into building materials.

In a comment to NikVesti, Deputy Mayor Serhii Korenev said that the construction waste processing plant in Mykolaiv is planned to be used for the needs of two more regions: Kherson and part of Kirovohrad.

At the same time, communities that want to use the services of the construction waste processing plant after the destruction are offered two options for cooperation. In the first, they can transfer all waste for processing at a lower price, and in the second, they can get the processed material back, but this option will be more expensive.