COMPOSITION OF SOLID WASTE IN THE BERD MUNICIPAL DUMP IN TAVUSH MARZ, ARMENIA By PATRICIA R. BUTLER A REPORT Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE IN FORESTRY MICHIGAN TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY 2008 ©2008 Patricia Butler The report: “Composition of Solid Waste in the Berd Municipal Dump in Tavush Marz, Armenia” is hereby approved in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree MASTER OF SCIENCE IN FORESTRY School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science Signatures: Advisor ______________________________________________ Blair D. Orr Dean ________________________________________________ Dr. Margaret R. Gale Date _________________________________________________ ii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... vi ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2: ARMENIA................................................................................................... 4 Description of Armenia................................................................................................... 4 Climate ............................................................................................................................ 8 Water Resources ............................................................................................................. 8 Biodiversity ..................................................................................................................... 9 Agriculture .................................................................................................................... 10 Forest Resources ........................................................................................................... 10 Sociopolitical Environment .......................................................................................... 11 CHAPTER 3: SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT IN ARMENIA ................................. 13 Environmental Legislation ............................................................................................ 13 Landfilling and Waste Generation ................................................................................ 15 Recycling, Reduction, and Re-use ................................................................................ 16 Study Area: Berd, Tavush Marz ................................................................................... 18 CHAPTER 4. METHODS ............................................................................................... 21 Collection of Samples ................................................................................................... 21 Statistical Analysis ........................................................................................................ 24 Waste Generation .......................................................................................................... 25 CHAPTER 5: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ............................................................... 26 Composition of Waste in Berd ...................................................................................... 26 Foods and Other Putrescibles.................................................................................... 27 Plastics ...................................................................................................................... 30 Paper ......................................................................................................................... 32 Wood, Bones, and Straw ........................................................................................... 32 Rocks......................................................................................................................... 33 Seasonal Variation ........................................................................................................ 33 Differences in Waste Composition in Berd and Yerevan ............................................. 35 Differences in Waste Composition in Armenia and Other Countries........................... 37 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ................................... 39 Recommendations ......................................................................................................... 40 Landfill improvement ............................................................................................... 40 User Fees and Landfill Taxes ................................................................................... 41 Public Education and Promotion .............................................................................. 43 LITERATURE CITED ..................................................................................................... 45 APPENDIX A ................................................................................................................... 48 APPENDIX B ................................................................................................................... 49 APPENDIX C ................................................................................................................... 51 APPENDIX D ................................................................................................................... 57 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Geographic location of the Republic of Armenia. .............................................. 5 Figure 2. Geographic regions with vegetation types. ........................................................ 7 Figure 3. Political divisions (marzes) of Armenia. .......................................................... 18 Figure 4. Berd municipal dump (Photo by Patricia Butler). ............................................ 19 Figure 5. City laborers with trash collection vehicle (Photo by Patricia Butler). ............ 20 Figure 6. Collecting samples from the garbage truck (Photo by Arayik Babayan). ........ 23 Figure 7. Composition of solid waste in Berd, Armenia by percent weight. ................... 28 Figure 8. Composition of solid waste in Berd, Armenia by percent volume................... 28 Figure 9. Volume (inner ring) and weight (outer ring) of Berd’s trash stream. .............. 31 Figure 10. Composition for Yerevan (Source: Arzumanyan, 2004) and Berd. ............... 36 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Temperature and precipitation averages (Source: MNP, 1999). ......................... 8 Table 2. Definitions of waste categories .......................................................................... 27 Table 3. Results of t-test for winter and spring transformed data by volume. ................. 34 Table 4. Results of t-test for winter and spring transformed data by weight. .................. 34 Table 5. Solid waste management action timeline........................................................... 44 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to my Mom, who instilled in me a love of nature, education, and the world. There is no one I admire more. Thank you to my sisters, my brother, and my extended family for your packages, letters, and phone calls that kept me going on the other side of the world. Thank you to my academic advisor Blair Orr for equipping me with the skills and insights to make the most of a very colorful two years overseas. Thank you for your advice, endless good humor and encouragement during the thesis-writing process. Thank you to my committee members Sarah Greene, Marty Jurgensen, and Chris Webster for your interest in and assistance with writing my thesis. Thank you to Phillip Ruppe for providing the Loret Miller Ruppe Scholarship. Thank you to my counterpart Samvel Hovsepyan, for entrusting me with project I didn’t know much about. Thank you to Jason Rhoades, for sharing Peace Corps Armenia, our graduate office, your friendship, and your suggestions. Thank you to Arayik Babayan, Erica Brouille, Jessica Holloway, John Kolb, Kevin Malatesta, Lauren McNamara, Tracy Motley, Dibar Tcholakian, and Warren Wilson for their volunteer work on perhaps the smelliest field study ever. I could not have finished without you. Thank you to Svetlana Wilson (Ghazaryan) for translating written documents, and to Lilit Kolb (Danielyan) for assisting me in all my photocopying and faxing needs. Thank you to Allen Stansbury and Sam Coxson at LGP3 for providing information and collaboration and to Thomas Lyman and the Acopian Center for the Environment, who provided GIS data. vi ABSTRACT The problems associated with open dumping in Armenia will become more severe as the growing economy increases the production of waste materials. Management of solid waste is dependent on the composition of trash in the waste stream, but there are few data for many cities in Armenia and no standard protocol for data collection. Differences in composition and generation of wastes between Berd and the capital city of Yerevan suggest local methods of data collection are more accurate. In the fall of 2007 and spring of 2008, the solid waste produced by Berd residents and business owners was analyzed for percent composition by both volume and weight. The methods of waste sampling can be applied to all cities at minimal cost, using hand- sorting of 0.5 m3 samples. Waste generation rates are calculated from composition and volume data to be 0.55 kg/capita/day. A t-test indicates there is no seasonal difference in composition. Composition studies may occur without regard to season in medium-sized cities with similar socio- economic conditions. The largest percentage of trash by volume was plastics (37%). Together, food and other biodegradable materials comprised 44.2% of the total waste sampled by weight. Organic materials have the most potential to be removed from the waste stream. vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION The U.S. Peace Corps in Armenia assigned me to teach Environmental Education at a secondary school in the isolated valley town of Berd. Berd is a beautiful town, lush with wildflowers, shrubs, and grape vines from spring through fall. A modest river cuts through the city, past the ruins of a ninth century fortress. A neglected dendropark pokes green-black boughs into the heavens atop a mountain. Cobblestone streets run through this small city along the river and up each side of the valley. The effect is spoiled, however, by the litter accumulating in every bush, poking up through potholes in the streets, and trash and raw sewage clogging the river. Trash overflows open dumpsters near apartment buildings where hostile competition between cows, pigs, donkeys, chickens, turkeys, dogs, and cats disperse the trash. Trash is a huge problem for two main reasons. First, littering is common and socially acceptable, especially when thrown into the river. Even if littering was considered shameful, the second problem is where to put the trash. Both problems are interconnected as part of the whole solid waste management problem. For example, my sitemate designed an environmentally-themed English camp in Chinchin, and invited me to teach. After discussing the benefits of clean parks with the students, we helped our students gather trash from the park into plastic bags. On the drive home, my sitemate asked the taxi driver what to do with the trash. Before we realized what was happening, the driver braked hard, pulled over and threw the trash into the tree-lined gorge alongside the road. 1 After a few months of working with my assigned school, my sitemate introduced me to the Berd community union (BCU). When the Tavush (Shamshadine in Russian) region became a marz (distinct politcal region) ten years ago, four separate regions melded into one administrative unit with the capital in Ijevan. The purpose of the BCU is to assist the sixteen villages surrounding Berd in locating and working with organizations to reach development goals. The director of the BCU is Samvel Hovsepyan. During our first meeting, I explained to him that I was an environmental volunteer with experience in ecology and forestry and that I was looking for project opportunities. He told me that I could help by giving him a million dollars. Several weeks later, Samvel requested another meeting with me. I met with him in his office at City Hall, and he proposed a project to improve the municipal dump. He had studied in Switzerland and knew that sanitary landfills existed, but he did not information on hygiene standards or design. I explained to him that I knew nothing about landfill design either, and that leachate control systems and liners were necessary. He told me that I already knew more about it than he did. I started researching solid waste management and landfills. Many Berd residents that I spoke with were proud of their environment, while at the same time, they did not really understand it or help to keep it clean. It is clear that a comprehensive waste management plan is not in effect, that there is no standard methodology in place for data collection, and that public education needs to be addressed as a serious part of the solution. The purpose of this report is to identify low-cost methodology to gather waste composition data and to analyze each component of the Berd waste stream to identify reduction or recycling opportunities. 2 Chapter 2 is a general background of Armenia for readers unfamiliar with the country. In addition to brief descriptions of the geography, climate, biodiversity, and land and soil resources, the sociopolitical history provides some insight on why Armenia is in its current situation regarding solid waste management. Chapter 3 provides a background of the national environmental legislation and policy that affects community-level solid waste management across the country. Current practices of waste management including landfilling and recycling or reuse of materials is described at the national level. The study area of Berd in Tavush Marz is described in more detail. Chapter 4 describes the methods used to conduct the study, including details of sample collection and classification, as well as statistical analysis methods. Calculations used to estimate local waste generation rates are also presented. Chapter 5 presents the results and discussion. The waste stream in Berd is characterized by waste generation rates and percentage composition of each component. Each component category is described, and each component is discussed separately to clarify its effect on the waste stream and how to manage it. Seasonal variation in waste composition is addressed. Waste generation in rural Armenia is compared to urban Armenia, and finally, Armenia is compared to other countries. Chapter 6 highlights conclusions drawn from this study. Based on those conclusions, recommendations are then provided for the improvement of local solid waste management. This chapter focuses on landfill improvement, collection of service fees, and the creation of a national public education campaign. 3