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The current policy and practices on household waste management are far from being satisfactory and are not tailored in a way to address current environmental challenges. Particularly, separation and recycling of waste, creation of sanitary landfills, environmental education of the population etc., are far from being satisfactory; the legal framework is inadequate, public administrators have no environmental vision beyond collecting and transporting the garbage to the landfills. There are different, even conflicting interests and actors involved in plastic waste management issue, including environmentalists, business, consumers, CSOs, local authorities, educators. For example, CSOs and environmentalists advocate for taxing supermarkets for using plastic bags, while consumers are against and business involved in producing plastic is concerned about losing revenues. The project aims to fill this gap by bringing up the issue of separation of plastic from solid household waste to a policy level, with a particular focus on plastic shopping bags. It is expected to develop consensus-based recommendations for elaboration of new policies that will impact the quality of the waste management service and the environmental situation in general.

The project has a strong public awareness component. It is intended that once legal, environmental and business aspects of the PE shopping bags issue are analyzed by experts and stakeholders, a pilot community will be selected to implement their recommendations. . An intensive public awareness campaign will be implemented in the pilot community with clear messages addressed to various audiences. Youth, children and women will be special targets of public awareness. Local and regional media will be used, social advertisements will be aired on TV, printed materials will be widely distributed with the help of volunteers. Besides, public awareness materials, various events will be organized in the pilot community such as clean up and plastic collection events, etc.

The project intends exactly to influence central government?s policy-making processes for reforming Armenia?s solid waste management system. The project will provide a well-studied and information based input on reduction of plastic waste that can become a valuable contribution and integral part of the reform strategy. Particularly, recommendations drawn in the framework of the projects that will refer to the analysis of the legal field, feasibility of alternative materials for manufacturing shopping bags to substitute plastic, thorough analysis of capacities and needs of local governments and their service provider units, findings of the survey of population?s perceptions on behavior change will be valuable input for fine-tuning the government?s policy.

The project is based on integrating separate, fragmented knowledge that different stakeholders have accumulated in the course of their activity referring to various relevant spheres into one comprehensive package and making it accessible for public at large. The knowledge management will take place at two levels: local/regional and central government. At local level, stakeholders will transfer the obtained knowledge to their respective communities. At government level, the project will create a unique opportunity for governmental structures to exchange information and thus fill the inter-sector exchange gap.

The project is sustainable as its outputs are going to be incorporated in higher level ? government policy and be reflected in practical initiatives that derive from recommendations of the project.

The project provides a perfect opportunity for replication as it will be testing recommendations drawn by various experts and stakeholders for implementing comprehensive policy on reduction of plastic waste in one pilot. Once the policy is adopted, it will be assigned for implementation in the communities of Armenia. Therefore, lessons learned from the pilot will be useful for replicating or adapting recommendations in other communities.

Women and men are equal participants of the project. There is no any discrimination or prejudice whatsoever in any part of the project. The project experts are selected based on their professional qualities and functions in relevant institutions. Both men and women will benefit from the project equally. A group of socially vulnerable women will get additional benefit by engaging in making multiple usage shopping bags. It should be also mentioned that the SGP grantee and its two partner organizations are women-led NGOs.

Youth is an important party in policy dialogue. The project intends to form a steering committee in which, along with representatives of government agencies, ecologists, CSOs, businesses, youth NGO representatives will be involved. Young people have a significant role in the project as they will be engaged as volunteers in conducting the survey and will contribute to elaborating public education messages and communicating those messages to various audiences. They will also have a chance to voice their opinions during discussions and dialogue with the government.