MY REPORTING
I started writing as a journalist in 2015, after completing my graduate degree in Musicology and moving to Armenia. My first gig was at Yerevan Magazine, editing and covering the arts and entertainment beat. From there, I traveled across the country writing copy for humanitarian crowdfunding campaigns. As my work took me to more rural settings, I could not help but notice the disintegration of regional environments and economies, first through the lens of food, and then through the lens of pollution. In 2016, I took action leading an initiative against plastic shopping bag waste, called Toprak Petq Chi (“I don’t need a bag”), which has since been adopted by the government of Armenia.
I returned to the United States in 2017, spending two formative years editing The Armenian Weekly, a historic community newspaper based in Watertown, Massachusetts (as well as a brief stint hosting their podcast). I left that role to cover consumerism and waste as a freelancer. My writings have appeared locally in Dig Boston and nationally in Smithsonian.com, The Counter, Civil Eats, Ensia and I freelance regularly for the waste vertical at the business publication Industry Dive. I also enjoyed some subversive real estate in the alternative arts newspaper, the Boston Compass, where I penned a monthly column called “Letters to My Corporate Overlords,” which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.
ensia
Developed to provide a blueprint for environmental action, LCAs often sow seeds of discord. What can be done to fix that?
waste dive
With beverage brands looking to reduce their plastic footprint, options like SodaStream could gain market share. A new partnership with TOMRA aims to resolve issues around exchanging C02 cylinders.
Some refill systems took a hit due to initial virus concerns, but the TerraCycle-backed platform's sales rose. Now, it's poised to set new sanitary standards and gain more market share.
Clothes comprise a notable chunk of the waste stream, and can have valuable second lives, but market dynamics are complex. Pandemic disruptions haven't helped.
Major brands like Starbucks and Dunkin' have banned the use of personal to-go containers in recent weeks over coronavirus fears, raising new questions in a wider debate around packaging safety.
The reusable shopping platform, which launched with big hype and is now eyeing retail, has already raised one key question in its early days: What are the true costs of convenience?
The pandemic spurred an uptick in plastic bag use as already limited retail take back options became more scarce. Stakeholders from all sides think it's time for new ideas.
the counter
Tech startups want to reinvent the bulk aisle—grocery’s most glorious, affordable, unwieldy section. That’s going to be harder than it looks.
As a global pandemic unleashes anxiety about packaging-free foods, a supermarket standby may never be the same.
For ad man turned ag man Charles Rosen, the resurgence of an apple has become a guiding metaphor, a call to arms, to help bring prosperity back to the city Newark.
civil eats
The bulk foods section of your average supermarket is an unsung hero of sustainability, where shoppers can avoid wasteful packaging by refilling their own reusable containers with food at the grocery store. Bulk is one low-tech solution to our garbage crisis that anybody can pick up. But for some reason, US supermarkets don't seem to have gotten the memo. Refill shopping is not only not encouraged, in many instances, it is prohibited.
smithsonian.com
In 1984, an Armenian literally wrote the book on home brewing, which sparked the craft beer movement in America, and the first mentions of beermaking came not from our colonial forefathers, but from the Fertile Crescent. Despite this, beer—a drink once stigmatized by the Soviets—is pretty new on the scene in Armenia.
Located in Armenia’s southernmost province, Zorats Karer, or as it is vernacularly known, Karahundj, is a site which has been inhabited numerous times across millennia, but a debate remains over its mysterious origins.
Armenia’s folk remedies and botanical traditions are getting a fresh look from the cosmetics industry.
In 1998, Zorik and his wife Yeraz, Iranian Armenians living in Italy, ditched their lifelong dream of opening a winery in Tuscany. Instead, they took their chances in the countrysides of Vayots Dzor, Armenia—a region historically tied to ancient winemaking.
dig boston
Every spring, the residents of Woods Hole get their hands dirty. They don’t have much choice. The seaside village’s economy is oriented around summer tourism to Cape Cod, and the garbage that washes up on its shores during the winter isn’t exactly great for business.
Melanie Bernier creates about a shoebox worth of trash twice a year, and to most people, that’s abnormal. But what’s abnormal to her is a society that devotes enormous taxpayer resources and human ingenuity to hauling around 270 million tons of trash each year—40% of which is single-use materials. In Massachusetts, 6 million tons per year end up in a landfill, and more residents tuning in to all the waste are trying to opt out.
For many Massachusetts residents, living their environmental values often means going out of the way to reduce their impact.
Sixty-five Fenway Parks’ worth. That’s how much garbage the state of Massachusetts disposes of each year. And Cleenland, a store that opened this June in Central Square, is betting on your willingness to prevent at least a few ballparks’ worth of waste—not just from going to landfill, but from existing altogether.
the armenian weekly
My response to a handwritten letter to the editor.
It was a packed house in Somerville for the New England debut of the band Collectif Medz Bazar, a folk fusion band reinventing the sounds of greater Anatolia. The show was well-received, but where music and ethnicity meet, there will always be complications.
For the last 48 years, Erivan Dairy, a small, family-owned and operated producer of yogurt in Pennsylvania, has been the single manufacturer of traditional Armenian madzoon in the United States. Here’s their story.
A review of a 2010 book investigating the success of Amish businesses, which stems—rather counterintuitively—from the limitations they place on many aspects of their society.
A mom-oir if you will, about the experience of sifting through my mother’s medicine cabinet and unraveling a rather charming story of assimilation through food.
Karases are the large, clay jugs once used for winemaking in Armenia. But today, the word is more likely to reference a brand than an ancient vessel. And where culture and commerce meet, there are sure to be complications—even, paradoxically, in the very industry karases exist to serve.
Who takes out the trash in Yerevan? In this interview with Nicholas Tawil, the CEO of Armenia's largest waste management firm, @sanitekarmenia, he discusses the sordid geopolitics of recycling.