A waste sorting line is to be installed in Ochakiv with the support of donors: it will cost about €20 million

Landfill near Mykolaiv, photo: archive NikVesti

Ochakiv plans to build a new waste sorting line. Its construction will require about 15-20 million euros.

This is stated in the article NikVesti «From reform to reality: how Mykolaiv region is fighting garbage without a regional plan».

Ochakiv Mayor Serhii Bychkov told NikVesti that the local landfill is at the level of «the last century» and needs to be updated. It was opened back in the 1980s and as of now, 79% of the projected volume of accumulation has been accumulated there.

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«We have a landfill, we dispose of waste there, but this is the level of the last century, compared to Europe today. We have no waste recycling plant, no sorting lines. We sort plastic separately on our own and if people throw it into separate containers,» says Serhii Bychkov.

It is difficult to build a new modern landfill in the city because there is no free land, and agricultural plots are too expensive. Therefore, a project is currently being developed to launch a sorting line at the existing landfill. The city needs about 20 million euros to implement the plan.

«We are currently working with international partners to install a sorting line: biowaste, glass, iron, plastic, paper. In general, the sorting line will be for 5 types of waste. This project will cost the city about 15-20 million euros. It will be international assistance, I hope. Most likely, it will be some kind of grant and loan from the EBRD or EIB,» says the mayor.

The community does not yet know how the waste sorting and recycling complex should work. They are currently studying the needs of the community in order to have technical conclusions on the basis of which the complex itself will be built.

« I was abroad, saw this line, shot a video, and talked to the designers. Now we are providing them with technical conclusions about our needs, including the morphology of the waste, its quantity, supply, the possibility of installing the line, and the available area. They take this data and start working. And they give us an explanatory note to the project. That is, that it is possible to do this, it will be such a line, it will be such a sorting, it will cost so much. Please order the project. You can order it from them abroad, you can order it from us,» says Oleksii Vaskov.

It should be noted that this issue is also being considered in Mykolaiv. In particular, in a commentary to NikVesti, Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych said that he supports the implementation of the project to build a sorting line in Mykolaiv, which the city has been working on for the past 5 years. However, it is up to the deputy corps to decide after a detailed study of the project.

Mykolaiv's landfill

Back in 2020, in a commentary to NikVesti, the mayor of Mykolaiv said that the city's existing landfill would last for another 10 years, i.e. until 2030.

It is located on the territory of Vesnianske village council in Mykolaiv district. The landfill was put into operation in 1972 with a 50-year lifespan, i.e. until 2022. It is designed to dispose of 50 million cubic metres of waste.

The report on the strategic environmental assessment of the draft master plan for Mykolaiv, published in 2018, stated that the city's landfill capacity was 98% exhausted. Therefore, they added, it is imperative to build new modern waste sorting and recycling facilities, introduce separate waste collection, and increase the use of recycled materials.

On 20 May 2025, Mykolaiv selected a company to build a sorting line for solid waste processing. The winner of the tender was «Waste To Energy Niko».

In September 2024, the procedure for the operation of the household waste sorting line and the terms of the tender were agreed upon. It was reported that the sorting line will be able to process up to 70% of waste, and the remaining 30% will be buried. The project stipulates that the company that wins the tender will transfer at least 10% of its profits to the maintenance of the landfill.

The terms of the agreement include a 25-year period of cooperation. There were warnings in the city council that this was too long and could limit the community's flexibility. At the initiative of the chairman of the planning and budgetary commission of the city council, Fedir Panchenko, an alternative draft decision has already been developed — to refuse the agreement with «Waste To Energy Niko» for waste sorting. Earlier, in a commentary to «NikVesti», «Waste To Energy Niko», which won the investment competition held by the city council, assured that such a system would not only reduce the burden on the city's landfill, but would also allow the city to save money, create new jobs and gain access to international «green» financing.