VALUE OF THE DUMP

A few years ago, an exhibition of an Iranian artist specializing in contemporary art was held in one of the galleries of Baku. The main focus of the exhibition was to draw attention to the growing volume of litter in the world. A number of installations represented compositions from discarded household items and appliances. In fact, the problem of waste disposal is more serious than people think. Apart from the fact that it helps to solve the problem of waste piling up, which causes significant harm to the environment and health, waste disposal in an era of dwindling natural resources helps to save the lion's share of the energy consumed.

Disposal as a necessity

The urgency of this problem in the world is also increasing with the growth in the production of short-lived, disposable household items and packaging - often from synthetic materials. Damage from rubbish accumulating in the dumps is enormous. Although deserted areas or pits are used dumps, their impact on nearby communities cannot be denied - the miasma, waste water and evaporation of gases produced during the decomposition, particularly methane, which leads to the greenhouse effect. In addition, obviously, dumps require fairly large areas that even developed countries cannot always afford. Often, to eliminate debris, rubbish is burned. This makes it possible to generate the heat required for power, but as the waste burns, many harmful substances are released, and very persistent compounds - dioxins - may cause irreparable damage to the environment. Therefore, the recycling and reuse of litter and waste is a trend not even for tomorrow, but already for today.

The situation is not new. Even in ancient times people recycled household food waste, turning it into compost and fertilizers. Many European countries, seriously concerned about this issue, have been successfully implementing projects for the reuse of waste for several years. For instance, in Sweden only 4 per cent of municipal solid waste is sent to landfills. Everything else is either recycled or burned to generate electricity and heat water.

The crucial issue of waste recycling is state control, which regulates the legal framework of this enterprise and with the help of a system of benefits, stimulates technologies that use secondary raw materials or partly consist of waste.

Recycling scheme

Secondary raw materials include waste paper (any paper, including packaging, textiles, etc.), glass (glass containers and other glass waste), scrap metal, chemicals, rubber, electronics, plastics and construction waste (bricks, concrete).

An incinerator was commissioned in Azerbaijan in 2012. On 19 December 2012, the plant was put into operation. According to JSC Tamiz Sahar, by its technological capacity the plant is considered one of the largest in Eastern Europe and CIS countries. In the same period, a waste sorting plant under the jurisdiction of Tamiz Sahar was put into operation. As far as rubbish collection is concerned, a representative of the company press service, Vuqar Babayev, told R+ that it is being carried out by services of the executive authorities of Baku. Then it is delivered to the waste sorting plant. There it is separated into different sorts: usable materials are sent to enterprises that use it, while unusable materials are burned. "We press recycled raw materials and send them to plants, for example, metals are sent to plants for ferrous and nonferrous metals, waste paper and all paper - for the production of paper. We burn the waste that cannot be used in the incinerator," the representative of Tamiz Sahar told us. According to him, after burning waste, its volume is reduced by 10 times, and electricity generated in a year is able to cater for a 100,000 homes. "For your reference, it is the approximate size of any large district of Azerbaijan," Babayev said.

The waste that is not subject to disposal or incineration - electronics, old batteries, melted or damaged - will not remain neglected. According to the JSC, with the support of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, the pilot project "Clean Qala" is being carried out in the village of Qala. In July, the fourth international exhibition "From waste into art" was held there. The main purpose of such exhibitions is educational work designed to teach people how to sort litter and keep them from unnecessarily wasting resources. In this exhibition, "Tamiz Sahar" presents various works of art and installations made from waste.

The problem of used batteries is also important. On the one hand, they cause irreparable damage to the environment, and the heavy metals contained in them tend to accumulate in the body, leading to serious diseases. But at the same time, the voltaic element available in the battery is a valuable material for recycling.

Where to take the waste?

Those who lived in the Soviet Union, of course, remember numerous calls to collect waste paper, for which it was possible to get rare and popular books, the long queues at points that accepted glass containers, and the initiative to collect scrap metal imposed on all schools. Unfortunately, such initiatives are rare now, and if they exist, they are more often sporadic. For example, in the spring of this year, the ASAN Service came up with the initiative "Exchange paper for a tree". As part of this campaign, it was necessary to bring waste paper to the point of the service located in the village of Bakixanov and receive a seedling instead. Unfortunately, there are no points that accept glass bottles in the city either. However, Nadezhda Kudryavtseva, head of the press service of at a brewery in Baku, says: "Our company has been using circulating glass bottles for its products for many years. This not only allows us to optimize the volume of purchases of new bottles, but is also favourable in terms of ecology. We have no collection point of our own, and supplies are carried out by our contractor. Recycled glass containers comprise about 20-25 per cent of all bottles used by our company." Of course, it is successful if the contractor does not have to "catch" bottles from garbage cans, often dirty and broken.

But the above brewery is not the only one that uses recycled materials in its work. A number of companies show commendable social initiative and collect waste paper in their offices. Then this paper is handed over to a recycling plant for paper and cardboard. One tonne of waste paper is 10 trees saved from being cut down, 2,000 kW of electricity and 200 cubic metres of water saved.

And again on sorting

As can be seen, the global, so to speak, initiative works in Azerbaijan. But here we are faced with the primary problem: in order for waste to be recycled effectively, it must be sorted first. Meanwhile, this is the greatest difficulty. Many people must have seen large colourful trash cans placed at the entrance to the Old City, right outside the metro station. They have clear labelling indicating what kind of rubbish should be put in each box: food waste separately and plastic and other debris separately. Residents of the Old City were even given special bins with two compartments: for food and non-food waste. But later, this initiative did not continue, while all other litter points in the city flaunt their "diverse" composition, containing the remains of yesterday's dinner, plastic bottles and broken household items. Refuse collectors that empty these swarms every day with the same "appetite" absorb waste of various origins. According to Vuqar Babayev, they receive rubbish in a concentrated form. "Of course, ideally, waste should be sorted in the primary stage," he says. "We sort the rubbish, but when different things mix, its quality is lost. For example, the paper, in which a wet watermelon was wrapped, is already unsuitable for recycling. But, unfortunately, this issue is beyond our jurisdiction."

Therefore, the work on the primary sorting of waste is very important and relevant, but another problem is even more urgent - to teach people to take their rubbish at least to the dustbin. On the example of our city, we are witnessing a kind of chain reaction syndrome - if a bottle lies around the dustbin, it will accumulate a whole mountain of the same bottles in a short time.

In Europe and the USA, the sorting of rubbish begins at the level of ordinary citizens, and it cannot be otherwise if the aim is its most effective processing. In some countries, there are boxes of different colours in front of each house - for a strictly defined type of waste: food waste, paper, waste paper and glass. In some other countries, refuse collectors take out different kinds of rubbish on different days of the week.

In many European countries, care about the environment draws attention not only to the proper sorting and disposal of waste, but also reduction of waste. For example, usual plastic bags generously given away in any, even the most run-down, shop are sold in Europe. Therefore, going to the store, most people grab a cloth bag (the analogue of the Soviet string bags). In addition, the sale of products in small packages is stimulated.

Many of the issues raised here are issues of mentality, which, as you know, cannot be eradicated in a short time. Therefore, government regulation, which includes both a system of laws and incentives with the help of rewards and punishments in the form of fines for violations, is necessary for the successful implementation of environmental projects.