Why Are Yerevan Residents Stealing Garbage Bins While Throwing their Garbage onto the Sidewalk?

Months ago, new large-capacity garbage bins were installed on Yerevan’s streets; however, as confirmed by officials, the intention to keep garbage off the streets, at least on the city’s main streets, didn’t become a reality.

According to Hovhannes Stepanyan, deputy director of waste management company EKOAR, responsible for garbage pick-up in Yerevan’s Arabkir administrative district, all the applied measures are fruitless.

“Our company carries out continuous garbage pick-up and sanitary cleaning work in this administrative district. Garbage bins are emptied twice daily, but a few hours later the picture is the same. You can’t have such a careless and negligent attitude toward property. These bins are for easing the concerns of our fellow citizens, right?” said Stepanyan.

Also added to the garbage bins, assert authoritative agencies, are broken bins.

“Yerevan City Hall provided all of the capital’s administrative districts, including ours, with 200L-capacity garbage bins, which we installed in busy areas. The goal was to ease the waste disposal process of residents and businesses. Considering the fact that many of our fellow citizens are too lazy to throw out the trash in the appropriate location and in several cases, outright throw bags, sometimes filled with construction waste, onto the sidewalk, we thought we might be able to avoid such situations; however, regretfully, the picture is the same — and now with the addition that they unsparingly have begun to break and even steal the garbage bins,” head of the utility division at Arabkir municipality Arsen Movsisyan told Epress.am.

Arabkir residents also complained to Epress.am about the garbage strewn on the sidewalks.

“Of course, it’s very commendable that they’ve installed garbage bins, which are quite large capacity, and it’s painful to see how unsparingly they break and remove them. In the evening, you can come across disgraceful scenes, when residents are even so lazy as to throw their bags full of garbage in [or next to] the bins. Many simply open their windows or come out onto their balconies and throw their garbage onto the street, which results in our street appearing like a real garbage dump in the morning,” Vagharzhyan St. resident Hermine Hakobyan told Epress.am.

Several Arabkir residents even refused to talk about this issue, while those who did talk only pointed to the horrible condition without proposing actual solutions to the problem.