Now with the Koreans: Odesa City Hall announces the start of preparations for the construction of a waste incinerator

Ukraine and South Korea have officially signed an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation under the EDCF (Economic Development and Cooperation Fund), which provides for Korean funding for 15 construction projects, including in Odesa region.

For example, according to Deputy Mayor of Odesa Hanna Pozdnyakova, one of the projects that South Korea is ready to finance under the agreement is the construction of a waste incinerator.

"It's signed. It's official. In Rome. As part of an intergovernmental agreement with South Korea. And among the 15 projects is our Odesa waste incineration plant. Our project is not just about waste. It is about energy and ecology. It's about independence. And also about the fact that when a team believes and works - even in the most difficult conditions - everything is possible. Yes, we have a lot of work to do over the next three to five years. But the most important thing is that we are no longer at the start, we are on the route," she said.

In April 2025, the Odesa Regional State Administration announced plans to build a new combined heat and power plant in Odesa that will run on RDF, an alternative fuel made from waste. The total cost of the project was estimated at $106 million.

As the Ministry of Communities and Territories Development of Ukraine added at the time, the Ukrainian and Korean sides have already begun preparing a Project Concept Paper (PCP), which, according to the procedures, must be officially submitted by the Ukrainian government.

Meanwhile, the Center for Public Investigations tried to find out how the idea of creating a waste processing plant in Odesa is progressing. The journalists went to the Dalnytsia Quarries landfill and made an investigative film about it.

It should be noted that the issue of waste processing plants in Odesa is constantly being discussed. Some steps have even been taken in this direction. In January 2021, the Indian company NuGreen Energy offered the regional administration a project for plasma waste processing plants.

It was about plasma gasification technology, when the plant operates as a plasma reactor in high temperature mode, using equipment made of heat-resistant alloys. This technology is considered environmentally friendly (no emissions into the atmosphere) and allows recycling 95-97% of waste.

In 2019, a memorandum on the construction of a waste recycling facility was signed by representatives of the Odesa municipality and Clear Energy.

Discussions about the need to build a waste recycling plant in Odesa began in 2016. After the tragedy at the household waste landfill near Lviv, the then head of the Odesa Regional State Administration Mikheil Saakashvili took up the issue.

In the same year, Odesa Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov and OHB Holdings President Ho Kyung-Kim also signed a memorandum of intent to build a waste processing plant in Odesa as part of the international business forum Odesa 5T Summer Business Days.

In March 2017, the Department of Economic Development began calculating the economic efficiency of building a waste processing plant in Odesa at the expense of the city budget and in May reported that the project would require a capital investment of UAH 87 million 300 thousand, or 3 million euros.

In June of the same year, members of the Odesa City Council approved the execution of land documentation for landfills so that the waste processing plant could be built.

Кирило Бойко