“Toxic substances in Ukraine: main sources and regions of greatest pollutionAccording to YouControl’s calculations, in 2024, businesses in Ukraine generated over 592 thousand tons of hazardous waste. The
largest amounts of toxic substances are produced by the non-ore industry, medical institutions, and the agricultural sector, with
Zaporizhzhia Oblast leading with 184 thousand tons.
”, — write: unn.ua
The study uses a comprehensive analysis of official data from the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, supplemented by visualization of spatial and sectoral trends. At the same time, an attempt is also made to assess how ready the Ukrainian corporate sector is to implement environmentally responsible practices in the field of hazardous waste management and what this means within the framework of ESG approaches.
ReferenceESG is a set of specific factors and indicators of how a company operates in relation to the environment and society. ESG factors are principles of sustainable development, which are deciphered as:
- Environmental – environment;
- Social – social aspect;
- Governance – management.
Geography of hazardous wasteIn the context of active economic transformation and growing expectations for the environmental responsibility of business, waste management — especially hazardous waste — is becoming crucial in the context of ESG approaches. However, the real level of environmental risks remains largely non-public or fragmentarily represented in the public sphere.
According to the results of an analytical study, in 2024, legal entities in Ukraine generated over 592,000 tons of hazardous waste. These volumes are distributed extremely unevenly: some regions accumulate tens of percent of the entire toxic mass, while others remain almost “clean” blank spots in official statistics.
The absolute “leader” in the generation of hazardous waste was the Zaporizhzhia region — 184,000 tons, which is more than 31% of the national indicator. The main factors here are the concentration of heavy industry, in particular metallurgical and chemical production, as well as the energy sector, which traditionally generates the largest volumes of hazardous industrial sludge and other wastes of hazard classes I–II.
The second position is occupied by the city of Kyiv with more than 61,000 tons. The capital region de jure concentrates not only large industrial complexes, but also logistics, medical, construction and service companies, which are also sources of toxic substances.
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The top five waste-burdened regions also included Lviv — 53.8 thousand tons; Dnipropetrovsk — 52.0 thousand tons; Volyn — 37.1 thousand tons.
For the Lviv and Volyn regions, high rates are partly due to the coal industry, processing enterprises, as well as the active development of production with recycled materials, where hazardous waste is an inevitable by-product.
Instead, at the opposite end of the regional ranking are Donetsk (39 tons), Kherson (11 tons) and Luhansk (7 tons) regions. In this case, the low rates are due to the full-scale war, the occupation of territories or the temporary loss of control over them, which makes it impossible to correctly maintain statistical reporting through the registration of the full volumes of waste generation and accounting.
The unevenness of hazardous waste generation is a challenge for environmental policy, as the distribution of hazardous waste across regions indicates several key trends:
- toxic load is concentrated in industrial regions with a large share of processing industry;
- data on waste generation may be underestimated or absent in combat zones, which distorts the overall picture;
- a large share of waste is generated not only by the traditional “heavy” industry, but also by service sectors — logistics, healthcare, business services.
For the implementation of effective ESG strategies, detailed zoning of regional environmental risks, a transparent system of accounting for the generation and disposal of hazardous waste, as well as a change in approaches to state and corporate control in the field of sustainable development are necessary.
Non-metallic mineral industry, medical facilities and the agricultural sector generate the most hazardous waste in UkraineDespite military risks and economic instability, the industrial and agricultural sectors of Ukraine continue to operate actively. At the same time, this also means a stable generation of a large amount of hazardous waste — from chemically aggressive substances to biologically active components that can have a significant impact on the environment and human health.
Non-metallic mineral industry is the “leader” with a clear lead in the field of hazardous waste generation. It leads with a noticeable advantage, generating over 201,000 tons of hazardous waste — 34% of the total volume. This sector includes quarries for the extraction of sand, gravel, clay, as well as mineral processing enterprises. They are characterized by waste containing heavy metals, abrasives and reagent residues, which can pollute groundwater and air.
Medical facilities are in 2nd place in terms of dirty waste, because 80.7 thousand tons of hazardous waste come from medical institutions. After the pandemic and in the context of hostilities, this figure has increased significantly. Medical waste includes infectious materials, spent medicines, ampoules, biological residues and other potentially hazardous substances that require special handling. Therefore, a side effect of the positive social impact on the health of citizens is the toxic burden on the environment from the healthcare system.
The agricultural sector, despite the often imperceptible pollution for the population, is in the third position in terms of the total volume of hazardous waste generated — 65.4 thousand tons. The source of toxic residues from agricultural enterprises are pesticides, herbicides, veterinary drugs, as well as waste from animal husbandry. Despite the “natural” image of the agricultural sector, it is a serious source of chemical load, which often remains outside the attention of environmental control.
Other key sectors: food, coal industry, water supply, metallurgy, electronics production, each of which generated hazardous waste in the range of 25 to 40 thousand tons. These sectors are united by a common feature — the presence of chemically active production cycles and limited environmental modernization. In particular, in the production of electronics, waste may contain cadmium, lead, arsenic and other extremely toxic elements.
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