Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

A waste plant will open in the Azerbaijani capital Baku in December, the Economic Development Ministry told AzerNews.

The waste-to-energy plant will be the largest in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet bloc CIS for production capacity.

The plant's construction work has been completed and the facility currently operates in the test mode. It will be equipped with fourth generation technologies and have the annual capacity to process 500,000 tons of solid waste and up to 10,000 tons of medical waste. Residue from the process will be an inert clinker, which could be used as a construction material.

The waste-to-energy plant was built along with the Solid Waste Sorting Plant, the new Balakhani Eco-Industrial Park, and a world standards compliant ground under a presidential decree on environmental situation improvement to create a reliable and safe system of solid waste management.

The incinerator will be an alternative source of energy production. It will be able to produce 231.5 million kilowatts per year, which is enough to provide 50,000 households with electricity.

The incineration waste plant was constructed on a 20-hectare area in the Balakhany settlement on the Absheron Peninsula next to the Balakhani landfill.

An agreement on design, building, operating and provision of technical services on "turn-key" basis for the waste-to-energy plant was signed with the winning bidder French Constructions Industrielles de la Mediterranee S.A. (CNIM S.A.) on December 15, 2008.

The 346 million euro project is intended to reduce the need for future landfills and to make use of the energy released in the thermal treatment process to generate electricity and heat. The plant commissioning will create about 100 jobs.

Notwithstanding environmental protection, waste management, if proper management and mechanisms are used, can also be a business opportunity supporting healthy social and economic development. The project will develop recycling industry in the country and green business opportunities.

Baku and its suburbs produce more than 1 million tons of solid waste annually and the plant will incinerate approximately half of this amount, reducing the volume of solid waste ten-fold.

Meanwhile, the head of Azerbaijan Greens Movement Farida Huseynova believes the incineration plant will not solve the problem, as harmful substances will be released into the atmosphere in the process of burning.

"We need garbage recycling plants, not a garbage burning one," Huseynova said.

However, the garbage, which has piled up for years in landfills, cannot be segregated now and should be neutralized by incineration. Thus, recycling could be a solution of the problem only in the future.

According to the State Statistics Committee, 4,583 cubic meters (1 million tons) of solid waste emerged in Baku in 2011. About 885,000 tons of that waste was transferred to Tamiz Shahar company, which was established to work to improve the environmental situation of the capital city through disposal of solid household waste in accordance with modern standards.

According to research conducted as part of the Integrated Solid Waste Management program by the World Bank and Economic Development Ministry, the annual solid waste volume in Baku is 350 kilograms per capita.

Waste sorting and reprocessing are the main utilization issues pertaining to waste management. Sorting will produce a secondary raw materials market as well as protect natural resources, energy, the country's territory and environment. Taking into account all these factors, waste sorting is one of the top priorities for Tamiz Shahar in its waste management practices.

The company said the first pilot project, Solid Waste Sorting Plant, is operating in test mode at a ground in the Balakhani settlement of Baku. The plant will develop recycling business in the country and will annually receive about 200,000 tons of solid waste, including glass, plastic, paper and colored metal.

Suitable material chosen for sorting and recycling will reduce the overall volume of solid waste. The plant will also be commissioned in December 2012.

Waste disposal

One of the pressing problems of the consumerism epoch is solid waste liquidation, an issue that is topical in Azerbaijan as well.

Economic development of the country increases the purchasing power, which in turn raises the volume of household waste. Until now, all the waste, including household solid waste, medical waste and its other types have been collected in a number of landfills.

The Azerbaijani capital is home to about one-fourth of the country's total population of nine million, and landfills cannot receive solid waste of the growing population forever. Moreover, the growing city cannot afford wasting such large territories to collect grabage, which would be dangerous for nearby residents.

Enlarging solid waste causes problems with its disposal. The lack of litter dropping culture produces rubbish disposal problems. While European countries segregate their garbage to simplify waste processing, there is still a problem with dropping garbage to containers in the country.

At present, three landfills -- Balakhani, which is the biggest one, as well as those in Surakhani and Garadagh, are in operation in Baku. However, these three grounds still fall short of the required standards.

A presidential decree approved the Complex Plan of Measures for Improvement of Ecological Situation in Azerbaijan for 2006-2010 on September 28, 2006 with the purpose of solving the existing environmental problems in the Absheron region. The Plan envisions addressing the issues related to collection, transportation and placement of solid household waste in Absheron.

Over-arching challenge

According to economic expert Nazim Mammadov, not only the capital Baku, but also other Azerbaijani regions need waste sorting and recycling plants, which will be an incentive for economic development. Currently, the situation with the solid waste disposal in the country regions is obscure.

According to a report of the Economic Development Ministry, 41 illegal landfills, each covering about 200 square meters, were found in eight Baku districts in September 2012.

The report says these landfills contained about 450,000 tons of solid waste; 60,000 tons have been removed to the state Balakhani landfill. Measures to prevent cleaned areas from becoming illegal landfills are being taken within the framework of Integrated Solid Waste Management project.

Although the number of illegal landfills has decreased, residents of a number of Baku districts often complain about the inconvenience and even danger of nearby landfills.

Tamiz Shahar has undertaken a number of activities to improve the Balakhani landfill and bring it to high standards. Preparations for its closure in the future as well as work for building new up-to-date landfills have also been conducted.

Following the latest monitoring of the landfill, a reduction of heavy metals in water and soil and chemicals in the atmosphere was achieved. The amount of dust according to PM-10 Standards (solid or liquid particles found in the air) went down several times; the concentration of HF, HCl, SO2, CO and other gases decreased as well.

The ways out

Tamiz Shahar has taken several measures for environmental cleanliness of Baku, including relevant education programs for children and youth, a number of events and exhibitions on environmental issues, tree planting, control over both illegal and legal landfills and much more.

The organization is implementing two pilot projects on solid waste segregation in Gala settlement of Baku with the Heydar Aliyev Foundation's support and in Icherishahar (the Old City) State Historical and Architectural Preserve.

Residents were familiarized with the main principles of waste segregation. Special colored containers for organic and non-organic waste sorting were placed in the two pilot areas, two-section waste bins and different colored waste bags were distributed to the population.

Large-scale awareness campaigns were carried out in order to provide active participation of residents in the sorting process. Sorting and recycling of waste leads to saving natural resources and energy, as well as rapid growth in the cheap raw materials market.

Tamiz Shahar launched a new educational program in October 2012. The Waste Calculator, which was presented to the public, informs people about solid waste's damage to the environment, and ways of solving the environmental problem. The calculator is available on the Tamiz Shahar website.

Also, the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources conducts a number of environmental activities every year. The recent cleaning event was dedicated to the Caspian Sea Week, which ran from September 24 to 30.

All the activities of the ministry undertaken in the frame of Caspian Sea Week were focused on preserving the environment and balanced nature of the sea, as well as on public education.

Waste disposal culture could be a way out of the problem, but the population apparently still is not ready for new steps in this direction.

According to a report on Public Inquiry related to Solid Municipal Waste Management, drawn up in 2010 by EkoSfera Social-Ecological Center, most of the waste that emerges daily is considered to be food waste.

The study involved 504 men and 696 women respondents.

About 89.8 percent of respondents indicated that food garbage is mostly disposed of in their household. 98.8 percent of respondents separate bread from the rest of household and food garbage.

The world population faced the problem of food disposal recently. However, according to the chairman of the Sustainable Development Research Center Nariman Agayev, the problem is not acute in Azerbaijan. No research has been conducted in this area, but Agayev presumes that 10-15 percent of the waste the Azerbaijani population deals with is food waste.

About 32 percent of EkoSfera Public Inquiry respondents believe that the separation of garbage is not important. 73.5 percent of respondents do not understand the reasons and the need for separation of household waste.

At the same time, 64.2 percent of those polled said that if necessary, they could segregate garbage and 47.6 percent would be able to dispose of the segregated garbage at special facilities if they are built, which is already a sign of progress in this area. More public awareness and increasing the level of the waste disposal culture is a natural solution of the problem.