R E P O R T On Municipal Solid Waste Management in Georgia 2012 1 1 . INTRODUCTION 1.1. FOREWORD Wastes are one of the greatest environmental chal- The Report reviews the situation existing in the lenges in Georgia. This applies both to hazardous and do- field of municipal solid waste management in Georgia. mestic wastes. Wastes are disposed in the open air, which It reflects problems and weak points related to munic- creates hazard to human’s health and environment. ipal solid waste management as related to regions in Waste represents a residue of raw materials, semi- the field of collection, transportation, disposal, and re- manufactured articles, other goods or products generat- cycling. The Report also reviews payments/taxes re- ed as a result of the process of economic and domestic lated to the waste in the country and, finally, presents activities as well as consumption of different products. certain recommendations for the improvement of the As for waste management, it generally means distribu- noted field. tion of waste in time and identification of final point of destination. It’s main purpose is reduction of negative impact of waste on environment, human health, or es- 1.2. Modern Approaches to Waste thetic condition. In other words, sustainable waste man- Management agement is a certain practice of resource recovery and reuse, which aims to the reduction of use of natural re- The different waste management practices are ap- sources. The concept of “waste management” includes plied to different geographical or geo-political locations. the whole cycle from the generation of waste to its final It is directly proportional to the level of economic de- disposal. I.e. it means waste reduction, collection, inven- velopment of the country. The approaches towards tory, transportation, handling, and final disposal. waste management are different in developed and de- The present Report is prepared within the frame- veloping countries, urban and agricultural regions as well work of the project, “Clean Up Georgia – Raising of as residential and industrial areas. It is common for all Public Awareness and Involvement in Solid Waste Man- over the world that mainly local municipality provides agement Improvement” which is implemented by the municipal solid waste management services. As for Consortium of NGOs “Georgian Greens / Friends of Earth commercial and industrial wastes - it is the producer’s Georgia” and “Eco-Vision” financed by Swedish Inter- responsibility. national Development Agency SIDA. The purpose of In developed countries the following methods of the Project is to improve the field of municipal solid waste effective waste management exist: management in the country by means of introduction of the integrated sustainable management system, public • reduction of the amount of the waste “at the awareness campaigns, familiarizing with modern meth- source”; ods and initiatives. The aim of the Project is to build ca- • waste reuse; pacity of the society with the western experience exist- • waste recycling; ing in the field of municipal solid waste management, • energy recovery from wastes; modern approaches, also to introduce new practices and • disposal at the landfill. create the demand in society for the establishment of the system of municipal solid waste management. Once the first four methods are used, there is still certain amount of the waste remained, which has to be disposed at landfills. However, in this case the amount is considerably less. This, by itself causes sustainability of the landfill, considerable increase of term of its oper- ation, and, correspondingly, reduces landfill’s negative impact on environment. With the purpose of reduction of the amount of the waste disposed at the landfill, in many developed coun- tries all over the world there is widely spread the initia- tive of waste minimization, reuse, and recycling, which is called in short “3R” (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle;) ini- tiative. To support this initiative, there are different pro- grams developed in the world, which is, for example: 2 1. Extended Producer Responsibility, EPR. 1.3. Municipal Solid Waste Management The program envisages increase of consumer’s in Georgia responsibility also during the further use of the product, i.e. creation of strong motivation for the According to present administrative-territorial di- producer to modify the product, which requires vision, Georgia is divided into 10 administrative units) less quantity of raw materials and includes in- as regions, which include 2 autonomous republics, 64 creased capacity for recycling. municipalities, and 5 self-governing cities. Each munic- ipality is a single self-governing unit, which, in its turn, 2. Setting the unit prices , so-called PAYT (Pay includes executive agency – gamgeoba (administration), As You Throw) and legislative body – sakrebulo (assembly). Increased prices on collection means relatively The field of municipal solid waste management is more fee on disposal of not segregated (unsort- coordinated by sakrebulo infrastructure commission, ed) waste compared to the segregated one. This which is authorized to make decisions at a local level, program also includes imposition of penalty sanc- approve budget, and supervise purposeful expenditure tions for municipalities, enterprises, and popula- of the budget. tion for disposal of not segregated waste, what encourages reduction of amount of waste dis- In Georgia, municipal solid waste management ser- posed at landfills, “at source” segregation, and vice is carried out by cleanup services existing at local increase of the demand for waste recycling. This governments, which mainly are governmental establish- program will also foster development of recy- ments or limited responsibility companies, in which the cling activities. state holds 100% shares. Because of scarcity of mate- rial and technical basis, these establishments can man- 3. Landfill Taxes age only 25-35% of total amount of generated waste, This program envisages introduction of addition- what is limited only by collection and disposal mainly at al “landfill” taxes for population and municipali- not managed landfills. ties, which facilitates landfill maintenance, while According to preliminary, unverified data, 80% of for the producers of the waste it is certain moti- total amount of the waste generated in Georgia comes vation for waste reduction. on population, 15% on the business, 3% on spontaneous- ly dumped waste, and other 2% on all other sources. For the implementation of the above-mentioned As for the waste collection scheme, it is almost the instruments, the governments of developed countries similar in all regions, and consists of three main sys- make lots of effort for the motivation of community tems: and the private sector by means of different policies and programs. For example, waste recycling programs, • Container, which means dislocation of plastic and which envisage encouragement of waste recycling busi- metal containers of small and average size (from ness by means of cheap, long-term credits, payment 0.24 liters to 1 cubic meter) in the streets of pop- benefits and other financial means. Besides, there are ulated areas, from where the lorries carry out also other measures, which include different types of collection and transportation of the waste in the governmental subsidies as well as educational programs intervals determined by each municipality to ex- for members of different strata and age of society re- isting landfills; garding the importance of waste segregation and prior- • Bunker, which is used mainly in cities, where multi itization of recyclable material. storey residential houses exist, and envisages get- Some countries prefer the incineration (thermal ting accumulated waste out of the entrance bun- destruction) of domestic waste. However, there is an kers within the certain intervals. It has to be idea that incineration represents danger from the point mentioned, that recently many cities have refused of environmental impact. use of such a system; Final destination of a particular type of waste is their biological treatment. It includes composting of bi- ological wastes, anaerobic digestion, and mechanical biological treatment. However, this process is possible only in case if the waste is segregated at the source: anaerobic digestion is designated particularly for “wet” wastes, while composting is for more dry, food waste. 3 • So-called “bell” system, which envisages riding According to baseline data, the most widespread the yards with a waste lorry and collecting the system in municipalities is the container system, which waste directly from population. constitutes 74%, and then the bunker system comes with 16%, and, finally, the “bell” system with 10%. 2. BASELINE DATA COLLECTION The main goal of the mentioned project “Clean up rent condition, area, amount of disposed waste, their Georgia – Raising of Public Awareness and Involve- legitimacy, availability of monitoring, conditions of ex- ment in Solid Waste Management Improvement” is to ternal and internal roads. make public familiar with the municipal solid waste Information has been collected from 85 populated management system in Georgia and to identify and as- areas in all over the Georgia. The following circum- sess existing deficiencies and problems. In this regard stance is also notable that because of absence of sta- the Project Regional Coordinators have been selected, tistical data, the information presented in the question- who have been assigned to study