Why Austrian Markus Sent a Photo of a Cow to Ilisu

Austrian tourist Markus, after leaving the Azerbaijani village of Ilisu following a four-day stay in the Caucasus mountains, sent the homeowner where he stayed his main impression: a photograph he took of a garbage dump in Ilisu, with a cow grazing among plastic bags.

Residents of this resort village in the Gakh region are forced to dispose of household waste into the river and the foothills, as garbage bins are not distributed throughout the village but are piled up in the courtyard of the local municipality. When the Turan agency inquired about the absence of bins in the village streets, municipal workers did not respond. According to residents, the municipality lacks funds to pay for workers and a truck to clean these bins and transport the waste to a household waste disposal site. Furthermore, the only such site in Azerbaijan is located in Balakhani, near Baku, and there is none in Gakh. The waste processing plant in Balakhani cost the country 346 million euros (652 million manats). All settlements in the country, except for Baku and Sumgait, dispose of waste somewhere nearby, in nature, or the waste is gathered in one place within the district.

In 2023, the whole of Karabakh was returned to the country, the region is actively being settled, and now, in addition to the previously littered areas, new cities and villages in Karabakh have also been added. There, tourists and locals also dispose of waste wherever it is convenient. The police have been mobilized to promote and enforce proper behavior. But let’s assume everyone has been taught to find and use trash bins. What will happen to the waste later, from hundreds of full garbage containers? Daily?

The problem is so acute that on July 2, 2022, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev made amendments to a previous decree "On Improving Household Waste Management." The company Təmiz Şəhər was tasked with cleaning not only the territory of Baku and the Gala settlement but also, until new mechanisms for managing solid household waste are established, with collecting, transporting, disposing of, and processing waste in the liberated territories and in the Terter region.

So far, there has been nothing but words, and garbage waste accumulates daily. We know what this can lead to from the events of May 2024, when on May 13, floodwaters in the Goychay district inundated a waste disposal site in the mountainous village of Garabaggal. Household waste was washed onto the roadway of the Baku-Shamakhy-Yevlakh road in the village of Garabaggal.

Ecologist Sadig Gasanov told journalists that Azerbaijan produces 3.5 million tons of household waste annually, meaning that each person generates about 400 kilograms of waste. In developed countries, household waste is used as raw material for recycling. In Azerbaijan, modern and profitable waste recycling is only carried out in Balakhani.

Experts believe that the country needs at least four modern waste recycling plants. One is near Baku, a second is needed near Ganja, and another two in the northwestern and southern regions of the country. In 2022, there were reports of successful negotiations with investors from the UAE and Italy. Economy Minister Mikayil Jabbarov mentioned that the "Azerbaijani Investment Company" signed a memorandum with Masdar from the UAE and a cooperation agreement with Technip Energies Italy S.p.A. But the development did not follow, meaning foreign investors silently withdrew.

Judging by the fact that, while announcing the need for such enterprises, we invite foreign investors to come and invest, there is at least 2.8 billion manats missing from the state treasury (note that building one Balakhani plant cost 692 million manats).

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan has enough of its own funds, but state money is used inefficiently and does not bring profit to the country. As Turan economist Fikret Mammadov stated, he calculated the government’s expenses on constructing the "Crystal Hall" in Baku for "Eurovision" (130 million euros); the Olympic Stadium (640 million dollars); the "Shah-Dag" ski resort (600 million dollars). Adding Mammadov's calculations for the failed digitalization project for centralized transport management in Baku (100 million dollars) and 40 million dollars for each "Formula 1" race (320 million dollars), we get 3 billion 82 million manats, which would be enough to build four new waste disposal plants.