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TNT: Between War and Greenwashing

03.12.2024

TNT (trinitrotoluene) is an explosive of great historical importance, but its production causes significant environmental impact.

For every kilogram of TNT produced, approximately 9.5 kg of CO₂ equivalents are released, in addition to chemical pollutants and toxic wastewater generated during the nitration process.
For comparison: the amount of TNT required for 350 artillery shells of the most commonly used caliber (155 mm) produces CO₂ emissions equivalent to those of a combustion engine car over an entire year.

IIn Western Europe, TNT production has been heavily restricted due to increasingly strict environmental regulations. Currently, there is only one active production site in Europe: Nitro-Chem in Poland, which produces around 10,000 tons of TNT per year. This situation has led to strong dependence on imports from countries like China and India, where environmental standards are less stringent. Until 2022, part of the TNT was also imported from Russia, but sanctions have cut off that supply route.

Europe is choosing not to burden its own territory by relying on foreign suppliers—essentially a form of greenwashing. It’s akin to mandating the use of electric vehicles domestically while generating the required energy by "burning tires" elsewhere.
The difference here is that this isn’t just about TNT production—it’s also about outsourcing part of Europe’s defensive capacity to third parties, which, at least on the surface, doesn’t appear to be a particularly strategic decision.

To better grasp the magnitude of these figures, it’s useful to look at some data from current conflicts.
The numbers come from predominantly Western sources such as reports from the U.S. Department of Defense and the Royal United Services Institute. They do not claim precision but provide a reasonable sense of scale.

These figures also cannot be used as a direct indicator of how a military action unfolds, since the system is highly complex. For instance, a cyberattack could cripple the opponent’s entire logistics infrastructure, rendering weapons useless—even as a deterrent.

Now to the numbers: in the early stages of the conflict, Russian forces were firing between 20,000 and 40,000 shells per day, with peaks exceeding 50,000. According to the Wall Street Journal, by the winter of 2023–2024 this had gradually declined to an average of 10,000–12,000 shells per day (compared to around 2,000 by Ukrainian forces).

Assuming the use of 155 mm shells on average, each containing about 6 kg of TNT, one can conservatively estimate a daily consumption of around 200 tons of TNT, which later dropped to about 60 tons per day.

For comparison: the amount produced annually in Europe would be enough for only about 50 days of intense warfare, using the consumption rates seen in the first year of the Ukraine conflict as a benchmark.