Municipal solid waste (MSW) management is in the early development stage in Ukraine. According to the National Waste Management Strategy, ca. 11 Mio tons of MSW is produced in Ukraine and 94% is landfilled, 3% recycled and the rest incinerated.

The country has many illegal dumpsites, official landfills do not meet on most cases the EU legal standards.

There is very limited source separation system to recycle MSW, including packaging waste. Waste pickers collect valuable materials in the landfills, from the waste bins and sell it to the waste traders.

The funding for the MSW management is not adequate, waste fees paid by the citizens are not covering the associated costs.

Ukraine has signed association agreement with the EU and will introduce EU principles to its waste policy.

National Waste Management Strategy (NWMS) approved in 2017 is the document, which defines the key concepts and objectives for the packaging waste management until year 2030 (among others recycling targets, EPR, polluter pays, mandatory beverage packaging deposit system).

According to the government plans, several laws would be revised and introduced (including Packaging Law in line with EU Directive 94/62), the municipal waste management system would be de-centralized with increasing roles for the municipalities. Municipal waste recycling should reach 50% by 2030.

Investments would be made to the infrastructure (waste separate collection, sorting, transport, landfills); total ca 2,8 billion EUR.

There are expectations to finance packaging waste recycling through the EPR concept and introduce deposit return system for beverage packaging.