Ukraine is accumulating millions of tons of debris from the destruction. But the main question is no longer just how to clear the rubble. The question is this: will the country be able to transform the war’s destruction into a regulated market for recycled materials—with standards, laboratories, traceability, and industrial demand? This is precisely how the European Union is already approaching the issue.

The war has created one of the most complex resource challenges for Ukraine in recent decades. According to RDNA5 estimates, in the residential sector alone, approximately 14% of the housing stock has been damaged or destroyed, with total losses estimated at $61.1 billion.

These figures are usually interpreted as a measure of the scale of destruction. But for the reconstruction economy, they mean something else: Ukraine has received a massive, albeit tragic, influx of materials—concrete, brick, metal, wood, glass, plastic, plaster, insulation, remnants of utility networks, and hazardous contaminants.

As of April, over 6 million tons of debris from the destruction have been recorded in Ukraine. And these are only the volumes that have already been moved to temporary storage sites. The actual scale, given the nature of the destruction in different regions, is significantly greater.

That is precisely why the announcement by the Ministry of Community and Territorial Development regarding the results of the pilot project with JICA and preparations for the next phase of cooperation for 2027–2029 has a much broader significance than mere technical assistance. It concerns the potential launch of a separate market—the market for secondary raw materials for reconstruction.

A Lesson from Europe: Construction Waste Is Not Trash, but a Resource Bank

In the European Union, construction and demolition waste has long ceased to be viewed merely as a landfill problem. It is one of the largest waste streams in the EU, accounting for more than a third of all waste generated in EU countries.

This stream includes concrete, brick, wood, glass, metals, plastic, gypsum, insulation materials, and other building components. In modern European thinking, this is not simply “construction debris,” but a resource bank from which some materials can be returned to production.

For Ukraine, this is a fundamentally important benchmark. If the EU views construction and demolition waste as a resource base, then Ukraine cannot afford to treat debris from destruction merely as rubble that needs to be hauled away. In a country in need of large-scale reconstruction, every ton of usable material must be valued not only as a disposal cost but also as a potential resource.

But European practice has a downside. Formally, the EU demonstrates high rates of recovery for construction and demolition waste. However, these figures often do not indicate true circularity. A significant portion of materials is used in low-value applications—for example, as backfill, fill material, or for construction work where it does not return to the production of high-value-added products.

This is where the key lesson for Ukraine lies: a system cannot be built around the metric of “how many tons were collected.” What matters more is this: how many tons of waste have been transformed into safe, standardized, and reusable material.

Otherwise, the country risks repeating the European model’s weak point—formally high recycling rates without creating a truly high-quality market for secondary raw materials.

Not a crusher, but an audit: where real recycling begins

The European model of construction waste management begins not with equipment, but with the identification of materials. Audits prior to renovation or demolition, as well as selective demolition, play a crucial role.

The logic is simple: first, you need to understand what materials are present at the site, which can be reused, which can be recycled, and which are hazardous. Only then can decisions be made regarding crushing, sorting, transportation, or disposal.

For Ukraine, this is even more challenging than for peaceful European cities. Waste from destruction caused by shelling is not the same as the controlled demolition of a building according to a plan. It is often a mixed stream where concrete, wood, metal, glass, plastic, paint residues, insulation, asbestos-containing materials, combustion products, and other contaminants may all be present.

Therefore, the simple solution of “crushing and using the debris in road construction” can be dangerous unless a system for inspection, sorting, and laboratory testing is established beforehand. In fact, this is precisely why equipment, training for specialists, monitoring, analysis, and the handling of hazardous materials are so important in the Ukrainian-Japanese partnership.

As noted by Olena Koltyk, Head of the Ukraine Support Team, Ukraine must view the debris from the destruction not only as a problem of post-war recovery, but as part of the state’s future resource policy.

“Ukraine cannot view debris from the destruction merely as a problem of clearing rubble. This is a matter of community safety, the environment, and the future of the reconstruction economy. European practice shows that the key is not simply to remove or crush materials, but to establish a complete cycle—from inventory, sorting, and laboratory testing to reuse in construction and industry. It is precisely this approach that will allow us to turn the consequences of destruction into a resource for reconstruction, rather than a new environmental problem,” noted Olena Koltyk, Head of the Ukraine Support Team.

For the market, this means that the quality of recycled materials must be proven, not merely claimed. Without this, recycled materials will remain a local experiment rather than a fully-fledged part of the reconstruction economy.

Asbestos: A Test of the System’s Maturity

Asbestos is a separate issue. For Ukraine, this is one of the most difficult challenges in managing demolition waste. In many old buildings, asbestos-containing materials may have been used in roofs, pipes, insulation, and other components. After demolition, such materials end up in the general waste stream, and without laboratory testing, they are difficult to identify quickly.

European practice shows that if construction and demolition waste is not properly sorted, it may contain hazardous components, including asbestos. This creates environmental risks, complicates recycling, and calls into question the safety of the final product.

This means that scaling up the Ukrainian system must begin with a unified protocol: how to detect asbestos, how to isolate it, who is authorized to conduct analysis, where to dispose of it, how to document the origin of materials, and who is responsible for the final product.

This means that scaling up the Ukrainian system must begin with a unified protocol: how to identify asbestos, how to isolate it, who is authorized to conduct analyses, where to dispose of it, how to document the origin of materials, and who is responsible for the final product.

The problem is that Ukraine lacks laboratories for rapid analysis of hazardous materials. Some of the testing still has to be done abroad. That is why the transfer of equipment from JICA and the expansion of training programs for Ukrainian specialists can have a systemic effect: this is not just aid to individual communities, but a key element in building trust in the future market for recycled materials.

Without laboratories, protocols, and transparent accountability, Ukraine will not gain trust in recycled raw materials. And without trust, there will be no market.

Digital Material Passport: Where the EU Is Headed

Another important European trend is the digital traceability of construction products. The EU is moving toward a model where construction materials have not only physical characteristics but also a digital history: origin, composition, technical parameters, environmental characteristics, and reusability.

For Ukraine, this is important not only in the context of construction. It is the same approach that is already taking shape in the timber market: origin, traceability, quality, environmental footprint, and compliance with standards.

This means that scaling up the Ukrainian system must begin with a unified protocol: how to identify asbestos, how to isolate it, who is authorized to conduct analyses, where to dispose of it, how to document the origin of materials, and who is responsible for the final product.

The problem is that Ukraine lacks laboratories capable of rapidly analyzing hazardous materials. Some of the testing still has to be done abroad. That is precisely why the transfer of equipment from JICA and the expansion of training programs for Ukrainian specialists can have a systemic effect: this is not just aid

In fact, the European market is moving toward a model where materials without verified origin and characteristics will gradually lose access to the high-quality segment. This applies to wood, construction materials, recycled raw materials, composites, and infrastructure products.

Therefore, the correct framework for Ukraine is as follows: demolition waste must go from being an “unknown mixed stream” to a material with a quality certificate. Only then can it become a resource for business, rather than just a problem for communities.

Government procurement can create demand

Even the best recycling system won’t work without demand. European practice shows that the secondary raw materials market is driven not only by environmental standards but also by government procurement, infrastructure projects, and material requirements.

This is particularly relevant for Ukraine. The reconstruction of housing, roads, bridges, public infrastructure, and industrial facilities will inevitably create enormous demand for materials. If the government does not establish rules for the use of safe recycled materials in public procurement, this demand will automatically shift to virgin raw materials: cement, crushed stone, sand, metal, wood, and other materials.

But if standards and requirements for the use of recycled materials are established, part of this demand could form a new industrial sector. This requires technical specifications, laboratories, certification, transparent accounting, and end-of-waste rules—that is, the point at which waste legally ceases to be waste and becomes a product.

This is where the main economic challenge lies. Ukraine can either spend money on transporting and storing millions of tons of waste, or create a market where some of these materials are repurposed into roads, concrete mixes, landscaping, engineering structures, and the production of new building materials.

Communities should not be left to face the problem alone

A pilot project on managing demolition waste, which has been implemented since 2024 in the Kyiv region and five cities—Odesa, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, and Kherson—has allowed for the development of initial practical approaches. Ukraine has received equipment, conducted training for specialists, begun implementing systematic monitoring, and developed material recycling.

In Borodianka, a processing cycle has already been established for materials that can potentially be reused in the production of road pavement. This is an important example, but it cannot remain a local experiment.

According to representatives of the Ministry of Development, virtually every community is dealing with debris from the destruction, as there is no region completely free of the consequences of the destruction. That is precisely why solutions must be scalable to the entire country.

“Today, virtually every community is dealing with debris from the destruction. But communities should not be left to face this problem on their own. We need uniform rules, technical standards, access to laboratory diagnostics, training for specialists, and clear economic incentives for businesses. If this isn’t done, the country will end up not with a secondary raw materials market, but with a chaotic accumulation of hazardous materials in local areas,” emphasized Olena Koltyk, Head of the Ukraine Support Team.

That is precisely why the Ukrainian model should be built not around one-off pilot projects, but around a national system for managing material flows from demolition.

Ukraine does not need to catch up with the EU; it can build a more modern model right from the start.

Paradoxically, Ukraine has the opportunity not just to copy the European model, but to learn from its mistakes. The EU has already shown that a high formal recovery rate does not guarantee true circularity. If materials are used primarily in low-quality applications, that is better than a landfill, but it is not yet a fully-fledged circular economy.

Ukraine can immediately adopt a different logic:

not “how many tons were removed”;

not “how many tons were shredded”;

but “how many tons were returned to production as safe, standardized, traceable material.”

It is precisely this model that can serve as the foundation for a new circular economy sector. And here, Ukrainian-Japanese cooperation with JICA is important not only as equipment assistance. It can serve as a testing ground for a new system: from accounting and sorting to standards, community education, technical requirements, and the creation of industrial demand.

Conclusion: Reconstruction requires not only materials but also a new resource policy

Ukraine can no longer afford to think in terms of a linear economy: extract, use, discard. The scale of the destruction, the cost of recovery, and the path toward the EU are forcing the country to transition to a different model—one where materials have a provenance, a certificate of origin, quality, and a second life.

Waste from destruction is a painful consequence of war. But in the reconstruction economy, it can become a source of secondary raw materials. To achieve this, Ukraine needs not just crushers and sites, but a complete system: audits, sorting, laboratories, asbestos protocols, technical standards, digital record-keeping, government demand, and clear rules for businesses. The key question is this: will Ukraine become a country that simply clears away the rubble, or a country that creates a new market for reconstruction materials from it?