FIRE: From Destruction to Circular Recovery: Safe Recycling of Explosive Ordnance

Russia’s armed aggression is generating massive amounts of debris from destroyed residential buildings, industrial facilities, roads, energy systems, and other infrastructure. Humanitarian demining is an essential first step in creating safe conditions for debris removal, sorting, and recycling. Explosive ordnance poses a particular hazard during debris removal and processing. Ukraine is therefore interested in exploring alternatives to traditional disposal methods, including safe technologies for demilitarisation and recycling that promote efficient resource use and meet safety standards.

The discussion aims to highlight the need to integrate humanitarian demining and debris management into Ukraine’s green recovery, and to present approaches to the safe processing and disposal of explosive ordnance identified during humanitarian demining, including environmentally responsible alternatives to traditional destruction methods.