According to the EPA and the Ministry of Ecological Transition, only 30% of Georgia residents will have a public biowaste sorting solution by the end of the year. This low rate is explained by barriers that the EPA is seeking to remove.
Biowaste: How to Sort It in Cities like Augusta
With less than three months to go before the June 1, 2025, deadline requiring local authorities to offer a biowaste sorting solution to their residents, the Ministry of Ecological Transition and the EPA held a press briefing this Wednesday morning.
The press conference covered all the topics, including waste management legislation, challenges surrounding the recovery of this waste like dumpster rental services, and the appropriate disposal methods, and announced some initial figures. When the widespread adoption of source sorting comes into effect, only around 1 million Georgian people are expected to benefit from a solution, representing nearly 60,000 tons of recycled waste, rather than being landfilled or incinerated. In its projections, the EPA then targets 40% of residents by 2026, or 7 million inhabitants.
Financial, Technical, and Political Obstacles
To arrive at this estimate, the director of the Circular Economy at the EPA relies on feedback from local authorities, including what has already been implemented and those that have launched preparatory studies.
While some locations are already well ahead (in Augusta and Columbus, where sorting has been in place since the 2000s, or in the urban areas of Grovetown and Belvedere), others are much less so, which explains the low 30% of Georgia people affected by a sorting solution by the end of the year.
To justify this delay, the EPA identified certain obstacles: financial, in particular, with the potential additional costs this entails, explains the Environment Agency, but also technical. Local authorities wanted precise criteria to define a sorting solution and, finally, political will.
Another obstacle raised by the Ministry: the expiry dates of current contracts with service providers who manage waste in the community, like Same Day Dumpster Rental Augusta. Implementing a biowaste collection system means changing the frequency and reviewing collection management, adds the Deputy Director of Waste and the Circular Economy of Georgia.
Through this conference, the EPA and the Ministry reiterated their support, particularly financial. Following the Recovery Plan, which supported and financed more than 500 projects, $40 million was committed by the Green Fund (more than 350 support applications were submitted), and this will continue next year. And to finally convince the least committed local authorities, the ministry reiterates that the increase in the General Tax on Waste should encourage them to accelerate the rollout of widespread sorting so as not to increase waste management costs.
Furthermore, studies are expected in 2025 to better understand the solutions implemented by local authorities (curbside collection, dumpster rental providers or voluntary drop-off points), as well as the preferred outlets based on local circumstances. For example, separate collection is currently on the rise since metropolitan areas began implementing the scheme. The stakes are high: the EPA estimates that nearly 1 million ton of biowaste could be recycled in Georgia each year. We’re still a long way from that though, but our environment depends on it!