Experts and authorities are looking for opportunities to produce new construction products from recycled debris. A wide range of stakeholders met at the round table “Overcoming the consequences of war: determining the volume and debris management” on March 6 in Kyiv to discuss approaches to demolition waste management and ways to solve problems with it in the war-affected regions.
The issue of debris management is one of the priorities in the recovery process and requires coordination of efforts at all levels, government officials and Members of Parliament say. According to Deputy Minister of Community, Territories, and Infrastructure Development Natalia Kozlovska, at this stage, along with cleaning the territories from destruction, it is important to focus on proper sorting and preservation of these types of waste. The Ministry considers debris as a possible resource for the construction industry in the process of further reconstruction of Ukraine, she says.
“We are talking about the reuse of these materials, which means that the processing of raw materials must be at a high level. We strive to understand what percentage of the construction waste must necessarily be used in new materials production,” says Nataliya Kozlovska.
“Already during a large-scale war, in 2022, we adopted the law “On waste management”. Unfortunately, when this law was adopted, we did not understand the estimated volume of this waste would generate. Therefore, debris management was not regulated separately. Now we have to reflect it in the legislation so that the Cabinet of Ministers has grounds to develop relevant by-laws,” says MP Oleg Bondarenko, head of the Committee on Environmental Policy and Environmental Management.
Ukrainian parliamentarians are currently working on a bill on the basic principles of recovery. Member of the Parliament of Ukraine, Chairwoman of the Committee on the Organization of State Building, Local Self-Government, Regional Development, and Urban Planning Olena Shulyak notes that the document will include, among other things, the issue of debris management as an economic component of the reconstruction process.
“At the moment, no one has accurately calculated how much of the debris we have. There is no such methodology. It is a challenge and a task for every community to assess and understand the situation. Don’t just take it all to the landfill, but through the prism of these environmental issues, try to solve social and economic problems as well,” says Olena Shulyak.
A member of the Ukraine Support Team coalition, the ReThink NGO, is working on solving the issue of accounting the amount of debris. In cooperation with the Ministry for Restoration, they are developing methodological recommendations for determining the projected volumes of this type of waste based on foreign experience. Similar methodologies are effectively used in many countries, in particular Japan, to calculate the costs of dismantling, grinding, and processing debris. However, it is impossible to apply foreign formulas 100% for Ukraine due to the peculiarities of the climate, typical building materials, and the scale of destruction, says the head of the UST coalition and ReThink expert Olena Koltyk:
“Correct accounting of the volume of debris will help communities build effective comprehensive recovery plans. As well as business representatives involved in this recovery will get the understanding of how much raw material they will potentially have in one or another region.”
Representatives of Ukrainian businesses present at the event along with scientists assure that the reuse of waste from destruction is possible and can even improve the properties of products. However, the director of the “Kovalska” Innovation and Technology Center Victoria Spivak notes that it is important to qualitatively sort, grind, and fractionate waste to achieve this.
Since December 2022, UNDP has been working on solving this task. According to Roman Shakhmatenko, coordinator of the group of energy and environmental protection projects, during this time the organization supported the clearing of more than 170,000 tons of waste from the demolition:
“We are piloting our approach, which involves several steps: surveying locations for the presence of explosive objects, clearance of rubble, sorting, proper handling of asbestos, further separation of fractions, and grinding. The next stage should be processing. For this, we need to understand where exactly these raw materials can be used, what can be produced from them, and whether there is an economic model for this.”
MPs, representatives of the Ministry for Restoration and the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Kyiv Regional State Administration, UNDP, the Confederation of Builders of Ukraine, companies producing building materials “Kovalska” and CRH, scientists of the Ukrainian Research and Design Institute of Building Materials and Products, as well as representatives of the affected territorial communities took part in the event. More than 350 participants from different regions of Ukraine joined it online.
According to the latest estimates of the Ministry for Restoration, based on the reports of territorial communities affected by Russia’s armed aggression, more than 600,000 tons of debris have accumulated in the territories controlled by Ukraine, and only 6% of them are being reused. Management and processing of waste on a post-war scale will require a comprehensive approach, including the creation of the necessary regulatory framework; the development of a catalog of construction products manufactured using raw materials based on recycled waste; development of standards for the manufacture of such construction products.
The round table was held within the framework of the project “Rethink: Recommendations for Debris Management on the Frontlines” as a part of the Ukraine Confidence Building Initiative, implemented with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The team of the ReThink NGO, a member of the Ukraine Support Team (UST) coalition, continues to investigate the situation on the ground as part of a project to develop recommendations for the debris management.
“It is already clear that the majority of opinions boil down to the use of crushed debris for filling roads or leveling the terrain. Now it is important to understand whether it is possible to use the generated waste for the production of more valuable products, for example, construction products,” says the head of the UST coalition Olena Koltyk.
General situation in the region
According to the Kyiv Regional State Administration, as a result of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation, 28,800 objects were damaged in the territory of the region, the vast majority of which are private and multi-storey buildings – 26,000 objects. Demolition waste is currently stored at 32 sites for temporary storage in various communities.
With the support of Ukraine’s international partners, a pilot project on the processing of debris is being implemented in the Kyiv region. As part of cooperation, the region has already received 30 units of specialized equipment. According to Kyiv RSA data, three construction waste processing lines are planned to be launched in the region: a stationary one in Borodyanka and two mobile ones.
What is the situation on the ground?
In Bucha, debris is stored at a specially designated site. According to Yaroslav Duchenko, head of the Urban Improvement Inspection, the rubble of 130 buildings and one section of a high-rise building has already been dismantled in the city. The total volume of debris that reached the site of storage is 75,000 cubic meters. Most of it is concrete and bricks (about 51 thousand m³), as well as asbestos-containing materials (about 8 thousand m³). The main mass of debris is not sorted.
“Volumes, we estimate tentatively. We think they are 80% accurate. Of course, it would be more correct to sort them right on the spot, but the first sortings were simply taken out in bulk, as it was. Because it had to be done quickly, there were neither enough people nor enough time. The question was as follows: quickly disassemble, demolish on a pile, somewhere it was sorted, somewhere not – the equipment drives up and takes it away and the rebuilding process begins immediately”, explains Yaroslav Duchenko.
In Borodyanka, work on the dismantling of destroyed buildings is still ongoing, and sorted debris is stored at a special site, says the first deputy head of the village, Dmytro Negresha. Currently, negotiations are ongoing regarding the installation of a processing line nearby.
“We are left with 15 private houses and three sections in high-rise buildings that need to be dismantled. Recently, an entire 9-story building was dismantled in the center, concrete and bricks were crushed on the spot. They managed to dismantle and remodel the house in a week,” says Dmytro Negresha.
Near the village of Gorenka, ReThink experts discovered places of unauthorized dumping of hazardous waste from demolitions. In particular, a dirt road covered with crushed asbestos-containing slate, which is land pollution and a violation of Art. 239 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
Project “Rethink: Recommendations for Debris Management on the Frontlines” is a part of the Ukraine Confidence Building Initiative, implemented with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
With the administrative support of the Ukraine Support Team (UST) coalition, the school in the village of Voznesenske in Chernihiv Region will receive a current roof repairs and major renovation of the food block along with a dining room. The total cost of the works is over 150,000 euros.
Voznesenske of Kyselivka community is located 7 km from Chernihiv. From the first days of the full-scale invasion until April 2022, the village was under occupation. Russian soldiers based in the premises of the gymnasium.
During one of the shelling, the roof of the educational institution was damaged by projectile fragments. During heavy rains and after heavy snowfalls, it flows, says the director of Voznesensk Gymnasium, Leonid Horbach.
Full-time education was resumed here already in September 2022, thanks to the available shelter. Currently, 66 students study in the gymnasium (including those from the village of Novoselivka, which suffered large-scale destruction during the Russians’ attempts to take Chernihiv), as well as 14 kindergarten students.
Repair work will begin here shortly. The project is implemented by a member of the UST coalition – the SavEd fund, which takes care of restoring children’s access to education in Ukraine. The funding for this project is provided by Slovak foundations – Open Society Foundation Bratislava and Pontis Foundation – thanks to the generous support of the Taipei Representative Office in Slovakia.
Another 97,000 hryvnias for the development of the project and estimated documentation are provided by the Kyselivska community council.
The report summarizes the work result of the UST (Ukraine Support Team) – a coalition of local and national organizations committed to facilitating recovery and resilience in war-affected regions of Ukraine. Our mission is to create and sustain recovery ecosystems through social engagement, economic revival, and strategic collaborations.
Eight non-governmental organizations, analytical centres, and experts have united to work comprehensively to restore life in the front-line and de-occupied regions in 5 key directions of social sphere: energy and utilities, education, health care, legal advice on compensation for damaged housing and debris management.
Read or download the final report below.
On November 14th UST in Mykolaiv held the coordinational meeting of international organizations, and national NGOs working in the field of education in the Mykolaiv Region, the regional military administration representatives on problems and challenges in restoring access to education in the region and child protection, prospects for strengthening cooperation and establishing permanent ties, coordination, and presentations of presence strategies in the Mykolaiv region and concrete activity plans for 2024.
There are 35-40 organizations that participate directly in the education cluster in the Mykolaiv region. It seems impossible to resume in-person education in most communities of the region due to the proximity of the war zone and the high probability of shelling. Digital Learning Centers and the conversion of existing premises into temporary schools have proven to be effective solutions in communities that have been under occupation for a long time or on the front line of hostilities and have suffered significant destruction.
The main needs of the region in restoring access to education:
- arrangement of shelters;
- restoration of access to drinking water in Mykolaiv;
- increase in educational centers, extracurricular activities, and safety classes;
- reconstruction of professional education institutions;
- provision of psychological support and cyber security, etc.
Among the participants of the meeting were representatives of Mykolaiv Regional Military Administration, Mykolaiv City Council, UNICEF, Plan International, SavED, NGO “10th of April”, Charitable Fund “Children of Heroes”, Association of innovative and digital education, MontessoriUA, MontessoriMykolaiv, IREX, SURGe, NRC, Peace Winds Japan, IsraAID, NGO Oleksandr Pedan’s movement JuniorS, NGO ISTOK, Charitable organization “Club of benefactors”, Save the Children, Charitable fund «Schedryk».
Representatives of territorial communities of the region met with national and international NGO’s that provide expert and donor assistance in the field of restoring access to education in order to coordinate joint efforts in overcoming the problems of the sector caused by the war. The forum was organized by the Chernihiv office of UST together with the Regional Office of International Cooperation of Chernihiv Regional Military Administration
As a result of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, 144 educational institutions were damaged or destroyed in the region. According to Yuri Muzika, head of the education department of the Chernihiv OVA, 75 of them have been restored today. He calls the return of children to face-to-face education the most important task.
“This year’s indicators inspire hope that with joint efforts we will be able to make up for educational losses. Today, 38% of schools in our country study offline, 46% – in a mixed form, and only 16% study remotely.”
It is the coordination of joint work between state and local authorities and NGOs that can speed up the reconstruction process, according to Tetyana Yasochko, adviser to the head of the Chernihiv Regional Military Administration:
“The purpose of this event is to establish communication between donors and communities that need help. We want to build this dialogue so that our joint work to restore the industry is as effective as possible.”
One of the serious problems in the field of education in Chernihiv Region, according to Andrii Kuzhel, head of the UST Chernihiv office, is the uneven implementation of projects in the region:
“Help is often focused closer to Kyiv. The Kyiv highway is like a conditional demarcation line. We all understand that it is logistically more convenient, but we have to remember the borders, where many donors are afraid to go. People leave from there, and the lack of access to education is one of the factors of this migration.”
Thus, in the 20-kilometer zone on the border with Russia, where face-to-face education is prohibited, there are 19 schools and 17 kindergartens, where almost 2 thousand children study in total. According to Tetyana Kovalchuk, head of the education department of the Novgorod-Siver city council, in two months of the school year, the number of students in community schools decreased by 20 children. Out of 13 schools in the community, only one is open.
“We are a community that is in the zone of possible hostilities, we have a 20-km zone. If we don’t have a school, we have less than 200 students, and funds are usually taken for large schools, – says Tetyana Kovalchuk. – In Novgorod-Siversky, we have a large lyceum for 800 students, where there is no shelter. We are developing project documentation for its construction, we are asking designers to break it into complexes in order to implement it in parts, but there is no donor for this either. We need to work on finding funds that are willing to join together.”
Representatives of 18 territorial communities of the region took part in the forum. In addition, the event was attended by the largest international foundations that take care of the reconstruction of the education sector in Chernihiv Region, in particular: UNICEF, IOM, ACTED, NRC, FCA, United 24, “Partnership for a Resilient Ukraine” та SavEd.
As part of the forum, representatives of international organizations presented their policies and areas of activity, talked about work plans for 2024. Anna Putsova, the head of the operational direction of the SavEd fund, on the initiative of which the first 8 digital educational centers were created in the schools of the region, emphasized the importance of the proactive position of local self-government bodies.
“A correctly articulated need with the right reasoning is equal to the satisfaction of that need. International funds can help you, but it is important to offer your vision on how to solve this problem, to work out legislation and possible solutions. Only then can this mechanism move from its place,” she addressed the representatives of the communities of the region.@
Mykolaiv volunteers, public organizations, and local authorities discussed cooperation in the recovery processes of the region. The participants of the meeting agreed to create a platform to coordinate actions, improve cooperation, and exchange information.
Olena Koltyk, head of the Ukraine Support Team (UST) coalition, during her speech at the event, spoke about the main principles of the coalition’s work and noted that a developed civil society is the key to the development of a democratic country. The problems in decision-making on recovery issues by the authorities at the central level with insufficient understanding of the needs of local communities were also highlighted. “It is very important that the public, despite the war, does not lose its voice,” she added.
Dmytro Tarasenko, Head of the Mykolaiv office of the UST coalition, proposed to start the practice of dialogues on a permanent basis. The creation of a structured and effective communication mechanism will allow all stakeholders to effectively interact in the recovery processes of the Mykolaiv region.
Simon Muschyk, a representative of the Stabilization Platform, emphasized, that the strengthening of public and state structures is a basic prerequisite for sustainable stabilization of society. Cooperation between all participants is extremely important. The participation of a wide range of parties, especially civil society, increases the legitimacy of initiated projects, which are supported and their implementation is monitored. A key factor is transparency in terms of financial support, as well as open access to all processes.
“The already acquired experience in the Mykolaiv region can become a valuable example for other regions,” Simon Muschyk emphasized.
Mykola Marinov, deputy head of Mykolaiv Regional State Administration, spoke about several approaches to the interaction between public and donor organizations. He also noted that prior to the creation of international cooperation working groups in each oblast at the initiative of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities under the President of Ukraine, the function of prioritizing the needs of communities in the Mykolaiv Oblast was performed by the UST team.
Next, the speakers of public organizations shared their own experiences and voiced the main problems and proposals for the cooperation of interested parties. Attention was drawn to the fact that currently, the state authorities do not have enough resources to clarify all methods of interaction and support, and this implies the involvement of assistance from public organizations and coalitions.
In particular, Yevhen Gilin, a representative of the NGO “City of Strength”, raised the issue of spontaneous coordination of actions, in which several organizations are involved in solving a common problem, while not coordinating actions among themselves. He suggested sharing experience, and lessons learned, and introducing openness and transparency of activities, which should become an absolute requirement when interacting with a donor.
Nataliya Gorbenko, representative of the “Shchedryk” Charitable Foundation, spoke about successful cases of institutional interaction with international donors using the example of the fund. She shared information about the presence of a project office and specialists who already know how to work with grant opportunities and reporting according to international standards.
The fund encourages everyone who cares to join, as well as to concentrate on the development of the economic component, and Natalya and her team in particular pay a lot of attention to grant opportunities for small businesses, free retraining of employees of enterprises in connection with the loss of jobs at destroyed or stopped enterprises. The speaker expressed her desire to sign a memorandum of cooperation.
The event was attended by:
- Olena Koltyk, Head of the UST coalition,
- Dmytro Tarasenko, Head of the Mykolaiv office of the UST coalition,
- Simon Muschyk, Representative of the Stabilization Platform,
- Mykola Marinov, Deputy Chief of the Mykolaiv Regional Military Administration,
- Ihor Filippov, Deputy Director of the Mykolaiv city mayor’s department,
- Oleksandr Korolev, Director of the Department of Economic Development and Regional Policy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Head of the Humanitarian Staff at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
- Yevhen Babkov, Director of the Regional Development Agency of the Mykolaiv Region,
- Evgeny Gilin, Representative of the NGO “City of Power”,
- Serhiy Tatarenko, Representative of the NGO “Development of Ukraine”,
- Ihor Yakovenko, Representative of the NGO “My Direction”,
- Vitaly Butuchel, Representative of the NGO “Hope is”,
- Natalia Horbenko, representative of Charity Foundation”Shchedryk”.
The public discussion “Cooperation of public organizations, local authorities, and donors in the recovery of Mykolaiv region” took place on September, 28, in Mykolaiv and was organized by the Mykolaiv office of the Ukraine Support Team (UST) in partnership with the Regional Office of International Cooperation. The project in the Mykolayiv region is implemented by the NGO “BRDO” with the support of “Stabilization Platform” on the order of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany.
The first episode of the UST podcast “Living Now” is out on our YouTube channel.
In focus: the beginning of the second school year during the war, how to give Ukrainian children the opportunity to get an education despite the ongoing war.
We talked to Anna Novosad, co-founder of the SavED Charitable Foundation, Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine 2019-2020, and UST (Ukraine Support Team) expert on education.
Host of the podcast: Olena Koltyk, Head of the UST Coalition.
English subtitles are available.
For the first time since the beginning of the full-scale war, the civil society of the Chernihiv region gathered to discuss the coordination of recovery processes with the participation of the authorities and community representatives with the aim of creating a single coordination platform. As part of the event, the participants discussed increasing transparency in the recovery of the region and the need for a quality selection of projects for the recovery of life in communities affected by the aggression of the Russian Federation.
A developed civil society is an indicator of a healthy democratic country. It is important that its citizens have their voice and they are heard, said the Head of the UST coalition Olena Koltyk. In her opinion, this meeting is an opportunity to find points of contact and discuss joint actions of coordination in order to better communicate and involve the civil society in recovery processes. After all, there are many needs, and it is important to understand the logic of their provision, taking into account the specifics of the region.
The event was attended by representatives of the Chernihiv Regional State Administration, the territorial communities most affected by Russian military aggression (Kyselivska, Ivanivska, and Kiinska), the regional Reconstruction Service, and the civil society representatives. During the discussion, Serhiy Kurenya, Head of the Architecture Department of the Chernihiv Regional State Administration, named the implementation of the “eRecovery” program as one of the key areas of cooperation:
“An urgent need that could be covered by the public sector is help with submitting applications for the “eRecovery” program (especially the category of elderly people) and drafting documents for property rights, and legal consultations. As of September 7, we have about 2,000 applications from residents of the region, almost half of which are being processed by commissions.”
According to Pavel Pushchenko, an expert on the Swedish-Ukrainian PROSTO project, local councils in Chernihiv Oblast have only begun the process of creating special commissions for reconstruction planning, when almost a year and a half have passed since the de-occupation.
“We have an example of comprehensive reconstruction of the village. Yagidne, where the community asked people how they see this reconstruction. This is a great example of public discussions, as it should be. But this is a pilot – there is support from the state and powerful funds. What should a community that has suffered but has neither money nor a plan to rebuild do? This is an important question. Communities must have a political understanding that citizen involvement is a necessity, not a formality.”
As one of the possible solutions, he calls for consultations and training of community leaders in the tools of involvement of civil society.
Simon Muschik, representative of the Stabilization Platform – a project that implements and supports programs in Ukraine with the financial support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany and foreign policy instruments of the European Union, addressed the participants of the event:
“At the local level, cooperation between military-civilian administrations, local government, and civil society is extremely important: joint approaches to assessing needs help build communities, which is necessary for the sustainable strengthening of state structures, especially de-occupied ones. The experience gained in the Chernihiv region can become a valuable example for the reconstruction of other regions.”
The participants of the event identified the main directions for the further work of the platform:
- Consultations for the public on the preparation and execution of documents for receiving compensation for destroyed or damaged housing.
- An information campaign for citizens about real recovery processes in the country.
- Training of the leadership of territorial communities on public involvement.
- Institutional support of public organizations of Chernihiv region.
“The UST team organized this meeting to start a public dialogue regarding the involvement of the civil society in the processes and planning of reconstruction, because everyone has a common goal, but everyone’s vision may be different,” said Andrii Kuzhel, Head of the Chernihiv UST Regional Office
“The UST coalition, with the participation of national experts, developed the SMART prioritization methodology. It was created in order to change approaches to reconstruction processes: not to agree to all offers of funding, instead to prioritize our needs – to show donors what help is critically needed now,” said Olena Koltyk, encouraging communities to use the methodology tool in their work.
The event was attended by:
- Yuriy Sukhomlyn, Deputy Head of the Department of Economic Development of the Chernihiv Regional State Administration
- Serhii Kurenya, acting Head of the Department of Urban Planning and Architecture of the Chernihiv Regional State Administration
- Andriy Halyuga, Head of the Volunteer Association “Bo Mozemo!”
- Alina Kolomiets, Spokeswoman of the Service for Reconstruction and Development of Infrastructure in Chernihiv Region
- Pavlo Pushchenko, Expert of the PROSTO project, author of the manual “Informing the Population in Crisis Conditions and Involving Them in the Process of Planning and Reconstruction of Communities”
- Viktor Nikitenko, Deputy Head of the Kyinska TC (Territorial Community)
- Volodymyr Shelupets, Head of Kyselivska TC
- Petrenko Svitlana, Head of the Department of the National Medical Center of the Ivanivska TC
The event “Involvement of Civil Society in the Recovery of Chernihiv Region” took place on September 7, 2023 in Chernihiv and was organized by the Chernihiv office of the Ukraine Support Team (UST) coalition. The project in the Chernihiv region is implemented by the NGO “BRDO” with the support of “Stabilization Platform” on the order of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany.
Фото: Влад Спешилов
The report “Rebuilding Life: A Comprehensive Need Assessment of War-Torn Regions” summarizes the work result of the UST (Ukraine Support Team) – a coalition of public organizations, analytical centers, and national and regional teams that united to develop an effective recovery approach through strengthening communities, establishing interaction with donors, attracting aid to the population to ensure all the necessary conditions for Ukrainian citizens to return home.
The project team consists of national experts and regional teams in two chosen pilot regions – Chernihiv and Mykolaiv.
We focused on three areas of public life: education, health, and energy security. Based on the experience of piloting the project, we decided to use a comprehensive approach to analyze regions and include communities’ strategic development in the overview.
Read or download the report “Restoring Life: A Comprehensive Assessment of the Needs of War-Torn Regions”.
Below you can also find the Catalog of Projects in Chernihiv, Kherson and Mykolaiv Regions.
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