The issue of segregating plastic waste from the general stream of municipal solid waste and its recycling and disposal is a pressing environmental and socio-economic problem. Given that existing plastic waste recycling facilities in Ukraine are underutilized and partially operate on imported raw materials, the problem of separating and processing certain types of plastic waste from Ukraine's overall solid waste flow is extremely urgent. Plastic wastes are categorized by disposal complexity into three groups:
1.With good properties (clean, sorted, easily disposed of, and up to 90% of similar materials can be used during recycling);
2. With medium properties (containing a certain amount of pollutants, that require sorting, and their processing involves additional costs such as selection, washing, etc., resulting in only 20-30% of their initial quantity being recycled);
3. Difficult-to-dispose wastes (heavily contaminated and mixed, their processing is often not cost-effective).
Polyethylene is one of the most common types of plastic wastes in Ukraine, accounting for 34% of all plastic waste. It was discovered that low-pressure or high-density polyethylene is one of the most marketable types of secondary raw materials in Ukraine, making the separation and collection of this type of plastic waste economically beneficial.
The aim of the study is to justify the possibilities of extracting and disposing of plastic waste from the flow of municipal solid wastes in specific cities of Ukraine. This has been implemented by the public organization "City of the Future" in partnership with the Odesa State Environmental University.
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