The mountains of garbage piled at Yerevan's Nubarashen dump have an apocolyptic feel. Who will be responsible for building an environmentally sound landfill in the country? PHOTO BY ROBYN WISHNA
When Arkadzi Sahakyan, head of the Avarayr Eco-Tour Company, leads tourists to visit Armenia’s natural wonders, steering his group away from trashed-out hillsides, rivers and even protected reserves has become a regular occupational hazard.
“All of Armenia is a trash can,” he said. “We are used to this, but we don’t like it. If you had guests in your house and there was litter all over the floor, wouldn’t you feel embarrassed?”
The beauty of Armenia is becoming harder to find, under a mounting pile of garbage. Armenians throw out more than one million tons of trash each year into unlined, untreated garbage dumps or the nearest ravine. That’s 350 kilograms of trash per person, according to Armenian Women for Health and Healthy Environment NGO.
It’s not only unsightly, but also dangerous: 70 different hazardous substances, causing everything from cancer to asthma, are emitted into the air when trash – particularly plastics – are burned. Burying hazardous wastes such as the illegal pesticide DDT actually mean the product gets into the water supply, livestock, and eventually into humans (see “Toxic pesticide . . .”, Page 7). None of the country’s primary dumping grounds – in Yerevan’s Nubarashen and Ajapnyak neighborhoods – have any mechanism to process the waste or prevent it from seeping into the ground.
“None of the waste dumps meets the minimal requirements for sanitation. Here they just dump the waste, and think it’s done,” said Lilik Simonyan, a medical doctor working at the Armenian Women for Health and Healthy Environment NGO, which has conducted a number of surveys examining the health effects of Armenia’s trash disposal methods.
Simonyan said that as a rule, the waste dumps are poorly equipped in Armenia and lack regular records on the dumped rubbish, conditions to wash refuse trucks, and even means to properly dump the waste. Separation of paper and plastic rubbish is done only informally by people who later sell it to companies accepting such materials, to earn extra money.
“Waste dumps must have concrete walls or be located on areas that can be cleaned and washed, to avoid contaminating the environment,” said Simonyan. “Refuse chutes have to be made of metal in the high-storied buildings, and have to have the proper capacity of accommodation.”
Getting the government to invest and build a proper waste processing plant or landfill has proved nearly impossible. Technically, both collecting and disposing of waste is a municipal responsibility. Yet the cost of building an environmentally sound landfill is prohibitively expensive, and most cities – even Yerevan – can’t afford to build one on their own.
“We don’t have so much money to have an international standard landfill,” said Gagik Khachatryan, head of the Yerevan city municipality services department. “Our best option was to privatize (the service) and require a company to rebuild this landfill.”
It's hard to take this sign posted at Nubarashen dump, which says "Don't Litter, Penalty 50,000 AMD" seriously. Are political leaders seriously trying to create an environmentally sound landfill, or are they just paying lip service? PHOTO BY ROBYN WISHNA
Yet Yerevan hasn’t been moving quickly on that score. For eight years, the city negotiated with the Japanese company Shimidzu, which wanted to build a plant converting some of Nubarashen’s methane gas into electricity, which would be resold to Armenians. That permit was finally granted in March, but Shimidzu won’t rebuild a new landfill, but will only cover the existing one, said Hayk Mirzoyan, head of the industrial department of the Ministry of Economics.
“We are still trying to find a new operator, which may happen in September or October,” he said. “This new operator will be required to rebuild and manage the whole landfill.”
Part of the problem might be that some Armenian businessmen actually profit from keeping things the way they are, said Karine Danielyan, director of the Sustainable Development NGO.
“We’ve heard there is a businessman who collects the empty plastic bottles and uses them for some business,” she said.
If the landfill is privatized, she said, people such as that man would have to pay for access to the dump.
Still, there are a few efforts being made to recycle plastics, mostly in the private sector.
Yuri Sahakyan, director and founder of the PoliServ Company, suggests a new approach in the sphere. He uses plastic parts of old refrigerators, washing machines, telephone sets, and heels of shoes to produce construction materials.
Sahakyan says the enterprise he started in the town of Abovian 10 years ago offers more than 100 various types of products.
The plant uses 5-10 tons of material a month to produce the stock and half of it is recycled from old plastic parts. The businessman also plans to introduce technologies to recycle plastic bottles and packages when he can find capital for the project.
“I get the materials from the people who collect it at the waste dumps and in the streets. I buy for a dollar per kilo. Recycling helps me save money, as a kilogram of raw material costs about two dollars,” he said. -By Edgar Amirkhanyan/Ankakh Weekly
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