Agricultural waste in Ukraine: generation volumes and recycling issues

Abstract

In the context of agricultural waste recycling perspectives, the article addresses the issues of its structure, approaches to classification, determining its volumes and generation processes, and waste generation coverage in statistical observations. The author offers the consideration of three classification groups of agricultural waste: crop, animal, and agrochemical waste. The low level of agricultural waste representation in official domestic statistical reports is emphasized. The methodological approaches to calculating the crop and animal waste are suggested, and agricultural waste in Ukrainian regions is calculated and mapped. The calculations show that the annual volume of agricultural waste generation in Ukraine amounts to 177.5 million tons, and only about 5 percent of them are represented in statistical reports. This situation almost eliminates the creation of an efficient public waste management system that would secure the inclusion of tens of millions of tons of crop and animal origin resources in economic turnover through waste recycling and complicates the implementation of business projects in the reuse and processing of agricultural waste. The article outlines the directions, technological forms, and reserves of primary and secondary agricultural waste recycling. It also defines three possible ways to use primary crop waste: to secure animal breeding needs, for energy purposes, and as a fertilizer. Most animal wastes are safe and low-hazard, and can be used as secondary material or energy resources. Manure plays a special role in agricultural animal waste recycling. Biologically cleaned, disinfected, or biothermally processes manure is a valuable organic fertilizer. Energy is considered to be a perspective direction of the manure use in Ukraine. The article emphasizes the importance of taking into account the competitiveness of agricultural waste recycling directions based on the general economic and environmental reasonability.