Waste dumps just everywhere

The community’s clearness is the local governing bodies’ primary and mandatory function. Approximately 40% of the communities’ annual budget are allocated for community cleaning and landscaping. Barekargum (landscaping) administration has been set up in the town of Armavir to carry out the aforesaid works.

From the legal perspective, it seems that everything has been done to maintain the town’s sanitary clearness. Nevertheless, the whole town, except for its central part, has turned into a waste dump.

The problem is that Barekargum Service, with all the will in the world, is unable to ensure good clearness in the town.  Usually, one or even two units of worn-out machines are unable to leave the fleet given that there are just the total of three units of them, whereas the lack of tires and fuel is a chronic condition.  

According to Barekargum’s schedule, waste should be removed from multi-apartment buildings daily. As for the districts with private houses, it should be removed there twice a week. However, this schedule is actually observed only in case of multi-apartment houses in the town’s center. In the private sector, removal of waste once a month has become a tradition and it is timed to coincide with the payment collection day. Town residents pay AMD100 (approximately US$0,20) per family member for the waste removal.

The fact that waste is removed here once a month, even in the hot summer months, allows one to form a clear view of Armavir’s sanitary condition. And that picture becomes more complete in the evening hours, when stray dogs gather at the dumps and the town residents have to endure their yawl and fights between them the whole night through.

As a rule, in response to their complaints, Armavir residents hear one and the explanations: a lack of machines, tires, fuel and miserable wages.      

Waste disposal problem is an abiding theme at the town’s Elders Council sittings. Ruben Khlgatyan, Armavir Mayor, initially thought that the problem could be solved through replacing the head of Barekargum service. Later, he decided that the situation could be improved by doubling the service employees’ wages.  However, it has never occur to the Mayor that the town’s clearness is directly related to the number of operating machine units and that to solve the problem, he should not just think about a manager’s personality or wage increase, but also about fleet replenishment.  

It’s enough as it is that 50% of Armavir’s roads are not paved with asphalt. The dust, garbage, heat, stray dogs, non-potable water in houses, a lack of the sewerage water treatment plant, provide most favorable conditions for the epidemic.   

It’s easier to find entrances to the rural communities by waste piles, rather than by name signs

Local authorities of many rural communities with small budgets excluded waste disposal and sanitary clearing from their duties’ list. In such villages people remove waste themselves based on ‘far away from home’ principle. As a result, the villages of Armavir district are surrounded with the household waste dumps.  

It’s rather hard to find the guilty in the rural communities, since more than half of villages have no waste collection vehicles and, consequently, there is are no agreement with the villagers on its disposal; neither are there any special landfill areas.   

The rural administrations link the problem to a small budget and ignore the governor’s order to clean the areas around the villages. As a result, the rural residents suffer because they live being surrounded by garbage and flies and have to inhale a disgusting smell from the dumps.  

Published: 21.11.2016