How to live without waste in a country where “life without waste” is not fashionable? |

Zero-waste consumption, carbon neutrality, eco-sustainability – mainly associated with economically more developed countries: as if to save the environment hungry– it’s not the business of beggars. of the BBC Baku The reporter talks about how to bring progress to a society that is not ready for it based on his own experience.

“This is the person I called the one who didn’t buy that bag,” the cashier in the supermarket says to her colleague, gesturing at me with her head.

Five years ago, when we gave up plastic bags (more popularly known as cellophane bags – BBC Azerbaijani), it was a huge inconvenience: we had to explain to every vendor near our house why we didn’t want the bag they were giving away anyway. Later they got used to it, but sometimes we had to explain everything again to the new employees.

“It’s not allowed, it’s not allowed,” said the supermarket worker to my wife who asked me not to put the bananas in a plastic bag, but to stick the price tag on the banana. Life only after the request to show the rules prohibiting the buyer from taking the bag my friend he was able to save his collar.

“If it is chosen from the general picture, then it is forbidden,” my wife complains. He is also the initiator of conscious consumption in our family: he found toothbrushes with wooden handles somewhere, refused plastic bags and keeps a worm that recycles them on the balcony.

He learned ideas from scientific podcasts, and he got used to saving from childhood – his family lived in poverty in the 1990s.

For buying food, he has woven a special bag – “microbasket” – very thin and compact, fits comfortably in a trouser pocket. They praise us at the vegetable market, they say: “What beautiful bags you have.”

In fact, in Azerbaijan, which prohibits the import, production and distribution of thin plastic packages to buyers law valid since last year. But it works badly: many people have not heard about it and are still surprised that buyers refuse such openness.

For several years now, environmental projects have been developed jointly with the state and business or separately from them. Eco-exhibitions and lectures on environmental protection are held, trees are planted, and hundreds of volunteers are engaged in collecting garbage on the beaches of the capital every summer.

So much work is being done, but with us, everything seems to be the same as before.

We live in a place surrounded by large buildings. Here, the pressure on the infrastructure is very high: garbage trucks remove waste several times a day.

A few weeks ago, a separate container for recyclable waste (paper, plastic, glass, metal) was placed in the yard, the rest of the waste should be collected in the container for “mixed garbage”. If the car is a little late in the summer, the pile of garbage turns into a mountain and starts to smell bad in the 40 degree heat.

We separate our own garbage and recycle biological waste. For this, we have a compost container for food waste – we keep it on the balcony, and then we bury it in the ground in the yard of our five-story building, where our neighbors grow pomegranate trees.

Sometimes special worms are used for more perfect reprocessing, but this is complicated work. Worms require double containers with drainage, and worms must be kept on a strict diet. For example, they should not be given garlic with meat, citrus and onions.

My wife, who was happy to buy fresh worms, filled them in the food waste jar two days ago. The next day he found the desiccated dead worms outside the jar, like beached whales.

If garbage sorting had been introduced earlier, they might still be alive.

Baku since 2012, a garbage disposal plant has been operating around it: there, they sort garbage, recycle part of it, and burn the rest. But environmentalists say that industrial sorting will not be efficient and most of it will be incinerated unless people themselves learn to sort the waste en masse.

In November, the employees of the local housing estate (better known as “JEK” – BBC Azerbaijani) went around the apartments and distributed different packages to everyone: one for recyclables and one for all other garbage. After a week, separate containers appeared in the yard.

But in practice, it seems that they collect all the garbage in one machine as before. I tried to clarify the matter with the local utility department, but no number picked up the phone and answered my call.

At the same time food There was no separate container for waste and we have to throw it in the general container as before. Or we bury it in the yard when it gets dark so that no one can see it.

Once, as I was leaving the store, the security guard stopped me and searched my head – he suspected that I had stolen something because I was wearing a faded linen coat. I had painted it once, but it faded again.

We rarely buy new clothes because the textile industry uses trillions of liters of water, creates huge amounts of waste and exploits people in poor countries.

An artist acquaintance of mine once told me: “You look so cool, bum style. Now it is very fashionable.” But there are few people who think so, clothes that are faded from washing usually cause a negative reaction in people. Some don’t ask anything, but they probably think I’m a pint.

My wife’s job is very difficult – after all, it is accepted in our country that a woman should always look good. But my wife was proud of her jeans, which she wore for 7 years, and for 4 years, those pants served her as shorts.

“After all, you are a woman, you should take care of yourself” – this is what my mother-in-law says when she sees those shorts on her daughter. During the Soviet era, she had to patch her clothes or take them apart and reshape them, but now she has the opportunity to buy new things and she does it very willingly.

Our other elderly relatives also think that we have no money. We no longer tell them that we are doing it because of the environment, global warming and other problems. They won’t believe it anyway.

We always have to refrain from unnecessary gifts at the holidays, explain how much plastic is wasted on these things, and why potless flowers are bad.

One way out is to seek advice from like-minded people. Eco-activist Leyli Salayeva says that she wants to guide others by her example.

“On my page that I hand over the oils I use [sosial şəbəkədəki] I write, and surely someone asks me to share my contacts with them,” says Leyli, explaining how to clean the used oil, where it should be given, and how technical oil is made from it.

Oil recycling is one of the many eco-initiatives that have emerged in our country in recent years.

The entire interior of the cafe where we met another eco-activist, Hajar Abbasova, is made of old furniture, which means there is a minimum carbon footprint. Hajar became interested in ecology a year and a half ago, currently preparing eco-fairs and giving lectures for his project:

“The hardest thing is not to agree, information is to find. Azerbaijan There is no material in Russian, so it is necessary to search in Russian or English.

Hagar is right, the search in this area should be continuous

“Did you know this shirt was made in Bangladesh?” – life in the next room my friend he asks me in the tone of his voice in which he scolds our mischievous son.

The other day, I mustered up the courage to buy him some new sports shirts, and later discovered that two of them were made in Bangladesh. Attitude to ecology, including labour this country has a very poor reputation due to its conditions.

When buying cheap clothes, it is necessary to take into account that the low price is not always caused by innocent reasons. There are brands that have publicly renounced unethical production, but it is necessary to conduct a mini-research on the products of others, to find out where and how the clothes are produced, including the carbon footprint of their content.

There is a lot of research on what types of goods produce and deliver the most carbon use. For the sake of being environmentally friendly, ditching plastic bags and ordering cloth bags online can sometimes cause even more damage – they’ll ship them to you by plane.

Abandoning plastic bags in order to protect the environment can only be justified if the eco-bags are used for many years and then disposed of correctly. Buying a lot of trendy eco-bags is worse than using plastic bags.

In addition, it is necessary to examine the details that seem small at first glance: for example, the thin layer of laminate inserted into some paper cups makes them difficult to recycle.

The best solution in any unknown situation way is reuse. If you are undecided about ordering something new, repair your old items – your phone or jacket. Your ripped clothes may scare the store clerk, but they won’t have a carbon footprint.

But conscious consumption does not always come cheap. Often, clothes from an ecological brand are more expensive, and ordering food at home is cheaper than going to a restaurant.

Ordering sushi in plastic containers or a taxi whose driver has been behind the wheel for 12 hours to complete the daily plan is an attractive option, because no one will blame you for it.

Azerbaijan is a poor country, with GDP per capita eight times lower than that of Great Britain. Sometimes it seems that only the prosperous West Europe in their countries, the middle class can enjoy the luxury of conscious consumption.

“Capitalists, your money makes a hole in your pocket,” says my friend, who is a staunch socialist, but thinks that the modern left pays too much attention to ecology. He also believes that focusing on eco-bags and other environmental details is a waste of time.

My friend says: “The world is falling apart, you are dealing with bags.”

We discuss the war in Ukraine, the pandemic in our country. To be honest, thinking about environmental problems in a world where we are not sure about the future sometimes seems pointless to me.

Eco-activist Leyli Salayeva disagrees with this:

“As the situation worsens, my desire to do something good increases. If I get caught in the general wave of negativity, I will drown. I cling to good works so as not to drown.”

When you think there’s very little you can do around you, it’s the little things that save you – like picking up trash and using it to make a toy train for your child or making yourself a ZZ-Top band.