Biodegradable Waste Management in Georgia: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract Georgia, as a developing country, faces challenges of biodegradable waste management. The promotion of the modern composting systems is the major problem for the country, given that the generation of municipal waste is characterized by increasing dynamics and, therefore, the amount of biodegradable waste is also increasing every year. By 2030, waste generation is expected to increase maximum to 1.2 % annually, which should be the cause of significant challenges for local municipalities whose duties include municipal waste management, including recycling/composting activities. According to the experience of the EU states and other developed countries, composting as one of the best approaches to recycling biodegradable waste, is still not properly developed in Georgia. The article provides an analysis of the current state of waste management, the main approaches of the existing national policy in this field, and the successful experience of centralized composting given on the example of the Kutaisi composting centre, the replication of which will significantly improve the state of biodegradable waste management in Georgia. In view of the critical analysis of existing approaches to composting and local characteristics, it is proposed to introduce models such as centralized composting and community and home composting.