Israel’s recent Passover holiday period, which also included opening season visits to beaches and various picnic sites, is still being dealt with by national park and forestry employees long after holiday goers returned home. Whether it be national forests, rivers and beaches, or city public parks, the amount of trash and food waste left behind is staggering, to say the least.

Employees of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority , in charge of watching over forest lands and national parks, estimate that as of Sunday, April 28, more than 700 tons of trash is still “onsite” and not yet been picked up from locations where holiday goers visited during the 8-day holiday.

The following video (in Hebrew) from the Channel 12 news site gives some indication of the amount of trash left behind, including picnic grills, folding chairs, and mountains of throwaway plastic dishes and utensils.

According to Channel 12 News reporter Guy Veron, literally tons of waste items of all types are still being picked up from these sites in an ongoing operation that is expected to take several days to complete. Environmentalists dealing with the problem of picnic trash left in these locations, including the country’s beach fronts, point out that much of the problem is simply a lack of education in environmental issues the country faces, along with a sheer disregard for protecting Israel’s fragile environment.

Although trash bins and dumpster containers are often available to put the trash in, many holiday goers simply do not use them; often leaving their trash on the ground or on beach areas where they spent their holiday time.

Spokesperson for the environmental organization Zalul say that litter by beachfront visitors is a constant problem; especially on weekends and holidays. As much of the beach litter includes throwaway plastic bags, bottles, straws and dishes, some of it gets washed out to sea, resulting in a danger to marine life.

“The Mediterranean Sea contains so much “micro-plastic” waste that literally all fish and other marine animals, including birds, have these waste particles inside their stomachs, resulting in eventual death for many of them,” a Zalul spokesperson once told me.

It is a shame that environmental awareness is not taught more in the schools. Parents pass their lack of environmental knowledge and concern on to their children, who continue their parent’s bad habits in respect of concern for the country’s natural resources. Protecting the environment should be considered an important school subject, since the country’s future depends on it.

More about trash accumulation and recycling:

Israel’s Beach Season Opens With Litterbugs

Drinking Beer in Cans and Other Middle East Recycling Problems

Jordan Talks Plastic Waste: Action Wanted!

Photo of Kinneret lake shoreline : Gil Eliau/Haaretz

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Taking a cue from its neighbor city Tel Aviv Lebanon’s regional “landmark”, Sidon’s notorious garbage mountain, will now become a city park. Sidon’s stench was once so bad that locals used to say  that “you smell it before you can see it.”  This hideous site, the result of garbage  trucks dumping straight into the sea not only detracted considerably from the  beauty of one of the country’s most historical cities, but has been causing serious marine pollution as well.

This ungreen reality is now in the process of being greatly improved, due to an industrious clean up  project by the city municipality and overseen by the  United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

These efforts are now transforming the former Sidon dump also known as the Saida dump from a foul smelling garbage mountain into a green park: “It’s gone from a 58-metre (190-foot) trash mountain to an eight-metre green mound. We’ve cleaned up the sewage, and the trash mountain is gone,”  said Sidon’s mayor Mohamed al-Saudi.

The garbage mound came into being during the 15 year Lebanese Civil War (1975 to 1990) when a place was needed to take large amounts of rubble  caused by the bombing and shelling. At one point, a large part of the mound’s total size was made up of rubble from destroyed buildings.

Mayor al-Saudi, who came into office in Sidon with a pledge to rid the city of the dump, says he is proud of this project, which will join the former garbage dump to a large 33,000 sq. meter public park that will contain 100 year old olive trees and an amphitheatre.

The dump itself was moved further south.

Edgard Shabab, assistant resident representative and manager of the Energy and Environment Program of UNDP,  told Your Middle East that in eight years time “the former mountain of shame will be part of a 100,000 sq. meter green park and something that Sidon will be very proud of. ”

Not everyone is impressed by the project, however, as the costs involved have exceeded more than $25 million USD which critics say could have been put to better use. The project has also caused damage to a long stretch of beachfront, according to Mohamed Sarji, president of the Lebanese Union of Professional Divers.

Despite the objections, the outcome of this project will be far better than the former smelly garbage mountain. Projects like this one will eventually make the entire region a much  better place to live in, and help preserve the environment in Lebanon for future generations.

More on garbage dumps:

Garbage Strucks Dump Straight into the Sea in Lebanon as Hezbollah Takes Hold
A New Face for Israel’s Garbage Park
Cairo Sustainably Manages Garbage with Unionized Pigs and Ragpickers

Image of Sidon City from Shutterstock

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Lebanon has had its share of pollution and garbage issues laundered out on Green Prophet. There have been stories of garbage trucks dumping their loads straight into the sea, or those on Sidon’s notorious garbage mound, where local residents used to say: “It’s horrible isn’t it? You smell it before you can see it.”

The country’s largest landfill, the Naameh Landfill, receives the daily garbage and trash pick-ups from the capital Beirut and surrounding towns.

Naameh has recently been the subject of mass protests by both politicians and residents alike. A report in Beirut’s Daily Star said that large numbers of protestors, led by Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt literally blocked the roads leading to the Naameh Landfill to prevent garbage trucks from accessing it.

Jumblatt vowed to close the landfill and end the contract of the largest company hauling trash to it, Sukleen, by January 15, 2015.

As a result of the Sukleen trucks not being able to reach the landfill, garbage and trash began piling up in the streets of Beirut (see above) and other nearby locations.

The Lebanese Environment Movement, which has been involved in numerous issues affecting the country’s environment, also issued a statement that said: “The Lebanese Environment Movement deplores the lack of seriousness concerning the Lebanese landfill file.”

Whether of not the landfill is closed next year, as Jumblatt vows, a solution must be found concerning the growing size of the Naameh Landfill, and dealing with the daily amounts of garbage picked up from Beirut and surrounding locations.

Neighboring Sidon’s garbage mound, or mountain, may be undergoing a change itself, as efforts are now being made to give it an “eco makeover” by reclaiming the land and crating building projects on it.

More needs to be done, however, before either the Sidon dump or the main Naameh landfill  can be turned into an eco park like neighbouring Israel is trying to do with it’s once notorious Hiriya Garbage Mountain.

More about Trash and Garbage Issues in Lebanon and other Middle East locations:

Lebanon’s Toxic Sea-side Sidon Dump Gets Eco Makeover

Garbage Trucks Dump Straight Into the Sea in Lebanon

Israel to Build Largest Middle East Recycling Plant

Cairo Sustainably Manages Garbage with Unionized Pigs and Ragpickers

Photo of protestors blocking the road to Naameh Landfill by Mohammad Azakir/The daily Star; Photo of garbage pile up in Beirut by Aljazeera

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Energy Industries, a company which specializes in converting energy from plants and other organic material, was awarded a contract to construct a plant in Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city, to create electric power from natural gas extracted from a large landfill.

The NIS 20 Million ($ 5,555,000) project will be carried out in conjunction with commitments made by Western countries during the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, that went  into effect in February,  2005. The aim of the Kyoto Protocol was to reduce greenhouse gasses in different parts of the world; including Mid East CO2 emitting countries like Qatar.

The use of methane gas produced by large landfills is one of many ideas as a way of reducing the world’s dependence on fossil fuels.

Zion Suki, Energy Company’s General Manager, said that the  project will involve doing test drills in the landfill, left unplanned for decades, to determine the amount of available gas supplies that can be obtained from it. “The landfill was unplanned; therefore, there is no way of knowing how much gas reserves might be available. We will only know by conducting test drilling to determine this,” says Suki.

Suki adds that knowledge gained in this project will be used in similar projects in other countries. In addition to projects involving uses for natural gas created in landfills, Energy Industries has been involved in designing and building energy-conserving systems that utilize alternative energy sources such as solar energy, establishing energy enterprises and institutions; and creating unique heating solutions for greenhouses and heating systems.

With the future of the Kyoto Protocol still in doubt, following the 2012 COP 17 Climate Change Conference in Durban, S.A., one can only wonder if projects like this one in Ghana will help reverse the ongoing results of climate change. According to last week’s UN report, 2012 showed the highest level of greenhouse emissions rates on record. Looks like things will be getting worse before they get better.

More on Kyoto Protocol and creating energy from waste products:

Will the Kyoto Protocol Survive Qatar of 2012?

Israel to Build Largest Middle East Recycling Plant

Possible End of Kyoto at Durban Threatens MENA Renewable Energy

Photos of Kumasi landfill: Energy Industries

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Israel’s garbage dumps and landfills are often referred to as large, unsightly “garbage mountains” such as the Hiriya garbage mound near Tel Aviv. With the Hiriya site now in the process of  getting a new “face” by being turned into a large ecology park, many waste disposal sites have been relocated out of sight and mind to the country’s southern Negev region, where literally all types of garbage are buried, including large items like thrown out mattresses.

The Hiriya garbage mound is now being transformed into an ecology park

This situation may be changing, however, with the Israeli government now issuing tenders for the construction of what is being billed as the largest Mid East recycling plant, according to the Jerusalem Post.

The plant when completed will be able to process a daily amount of around 1000 tons of garbage and trash, an amount said to be at least twice as much as the amount accumulated daily in the entire Tel Aviv and Jaffa area.

Part of the garbage will be processed into energy in the form of methane gas and biofuel, while other materials will be either made into compost for fertilizer or recycled into various products. Israel’s environmental ministry believes that this kind of facility will not only create new jobs, but will also reduce the need for landfills as well as enable the country to be less dependent on imported energy such as oil.

Finance Ministry accountant-general Michal Abadi-Boiangiu was quoted as saying that this kind of project will enable the country’s environment to not only benefit from less need for landfills but to also “implement government policies for promoting renewable energy production.”

In addition to creating energy from bio gas, other renewable energy projects will include those like solar energy, she added.

Haaretz reports that there may be two sites created in Israel to specialize in processing waste products to produce energy.  One of these sites will be at the former Hiriya garbage dump and will be able to take in and recycle as much as 1,500 tons of waste per day.

Other Mid East countries are also becoming more involved in recycling efforts. Some of these include Dubai, which has had a chronic waste disposal problem and is now in the process of “dumping its dumps” by becoming more involved in recycling both organic and non-organic waste products.

Even Gaza, which has both a high amount of waste products and a very small land area recently opened its first recycling plant and is now able to process around 50 tons of waste products per day.

Read more on recycling efforts in Israel and other parts of the Middle East:

Gaza’s First Recycling Plant Opens and Not a Minute too Soon

Dubai Dumps its Dumps

A New “Face” for Israel’s Garbage Park

Woman Tosses Million Dollar Mattress in Dump: She Should Have Recycled!

The post Israel to Build Largest Middle East Recycling Plant appeared first on Green Prophet.

Heaping urban trash may be an even more daunting global phenomenon than climate change, the World Bank warned in a recent report. What a Waste: A Global Review of Solid Waste Management reveals that by 2025, city dwellers could produce as much as 2.2 billion tonnes of solid waste a year, up 70% than the 1.3 billion tonnes currently generated.

More waste is generated in cities than rural areas because more packaging is used and less is recycled, and because people living in rural areas are less likely to have a consumption-driven lifestyle. But getting a handle on the problem, particularly in developing countries, requires a strong social contract between the municipality and community, according to the report – a serious challenge in parts of the Middle East and North Africa.

City dwellers will produce 1.42 kg of trash per day by 2025 

By 2025, 4.3 billion living in cities throughout the planet will generate about 1.42 kg/capita/day of municipal solid waste, which will create a huge environmental and financial burden for the local governments tasked with managing it.

Untreated solid waste emits methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and chemicals from plastic and other packaging leach into waterways. The World Bank sites untreated waste as one of the major causes of pollution in developing countries that are ill-equipped to handle mounting waste.

Global management of solid waste could cost as much as $375 billion each year, according to the report’s authors, who add that this is a “relatively silent problem that is growing daily.”

We’ve seen children running through toxic trash piles in the souqs of Tunis and we have watched families eat their lunch in so-called green spaces in Cairo,  surrounded by coke cans, koshari packaging and other waste.

A major wake up call

While many people have grown blind to the problem, the World Bank urges policymakers to consider the report as a major wake up call.

“The challenges surrounding municipal solid waste are going to be enormous, on a scale of, if not greater than, the challenges we are currently experiencing with climate change,” said Dan Hoornweg, a senior urban specialist at the development lender and co-author of the report.

Design has a huge role to play in addressing waste problems. The amount of packaging used for products needs to be reduced, recycled and reusable, preferably, and excess consumption has to be curtailed. More recycling programs are necessary and the public needs to become more informed about the origin and destination of their consumables.

We only have one planet. Let’s not bog it down with trash.

Image credit: Trash in Egypt, Shutterstock

More on Trash in the Middle East:
Zabaleen Film Portrays Cairo’s Garbage City People

Mekano Designs Renewable Energy Skyscraper for Cairo’s Filthy Garbage City

Egyptian Brothers Design a Clever Separator for Gulf Recyclables

The post Heaping Urban Trash May be More Serious than Climate Change appeared first on Green Prophet.

Landfills and garbage dumps in Lebanon have had their share of environmental issues. This reality is an ongoing problem for environmentalists there, and involves giant, smelly garbage mounds in cities like Sidon, as well as garbage trucks dumping their loads straight into the sea.

Giant landfills often contain all kinds of waste items, including discarded appliances, construction materials, and especially old tires form both both cars, trucks, and buses.

Recently a huge “trash mountain” outside the capital Beirut was the scene of a massive tire burning —  hundreds or even thousands of discarded tires catching fire, resulting in pillars of black smoke rising into the sky. The tire fire brought on health fears for people suffering from respiratory related diseases.

Lebanon’s GreenPeace organization investigated the fire, which occurred at the Bourj Hammoud-Karantina dump. They came to the conclusion that the fire was set intentionally by people wanting to extract iron and other metals used in tires.

With regards to the Karantina tire fire, the very thought that such environmental damage was caused by people who wanted to make a profit on the extracted metal afterwards is enough to make one wonder what might happen next.

The Karantina tire burning incident follows closely on the heels of an even larger regional tire fire late April at a tire dump near Al Jahrah in Kuwait, and involved an estimated five million tires. This Kuwait tire burning incident was so large the NASA satellites could see the smoke rising from it from hundreds of miles up in space.

The obvious environmental impacts of such fires are reminiscent of the 1991 Gulf War when hundreds of burning oil wells set on fire in Kuwait by retreating Iraqi military forces created an environmental catastrophe that still affects the area to this day.

Unsupervised dumps and landfills in Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries are a problem that is not going to be solved any time soon.

Photo via Nararnet News Desk

Read more on Mid East regional dumps and land fill issues:
Tire Fire in Kuwait Seen From Space
Lebanon’s Wasted Opportunity in Landfill Management
Garbage Trucks Dump Straight into the Sea in Lebanon as Hizbollah Takes Hold
Lebanon’s Sidon Garbage Dump More Serious Than Just the Smell

The post Beirut’s Giant Tire Fire Intentionally Set? appeared first on Green Prophet.

What’s an Aqaba trip over Eid Ul Adha without some snorkeling at the coral beds off Tala Bay of the Red Sea?  It’s your chance to star in your own National Geographic special.  Get knocked out by the natural beauty, then repulsed by the manmade trash.

A glass-bottom boat ride to the reef gives aerial views of Coke cans, toothbrushes, a golf club and bra, all snuggled in a Where’s-Waldo-like panorama of over 400 species of  hard and soft coral.

It gets worse when you finally dive in.  Candy wrappers float by lazily along underwater currents.  Was that a clown fish that brushed up against me? Or just a newspaper some clown tossed away?  The plastic bottles are as prolific underwater as they are above.

It is a chicken-egg riddle of monstrous proportion:  thousands of visitors head to the seaside during the holiday, dumping money into local economy, but also dumping trash.

Who gets assigned as clean-up committee?

Over the Eid Ul Adha holiday some eighty kilograms of trash was collected from the Gulf of Aqaba in a campaign organized by the Aqaba Marine Park.  Alerted by divers in the seven-kilometer Aqaba Marine Park to new accumulations of debris over coral beds, the park, in cooperation with local dive centers, launched a voluntary clean-up.

This noble effort needs to be expanded and bolstered with support from others who benefit directly from the tourist tsunami.  What role do you see for luxury resorts, aquatic sports centers, and Aqaba’s Chamber of Commerce in maintaining and protecting these underwater treasures?

Slap some Dead Sea mud on my face anytime, but I’ll pass on the floating candy wrappers.

Top photo via Aqaba Marine Park. Lower photo via the Aqaba Dive Village (MORAD ALAMITA, DIVE MASTER).

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The 11th annual International Cleanup Day activities in Israel, which took place on November 1st, were attended by 204 regional Israeli councils, 260,000 volunteers, environmental VIPs, and one solar powered taxi (driven by Swiss inventor Louis Palmer who is driving across the globe in his eco-friendly vehicle).  The Cleanup Day was also observed by 40 million other people in 120 countries, who all set out to raise environmental awareness and, well, clean up.

KKL-JNF World Chairman Efi Stenzier, who attended the Cleanup Day ceremony in Ben Shemen Forest, said that “volunteers who participate in Cleanup Day are from all sectors and religions.  Our message is clear and simple.  If we are capable of cleaning up the forest, we can guarantee that the whole country will be cleaner.  It depends on each and every one of us.”

Cleanup Day has been observed several times in Israel already, but this year was a little bit different.  Instead of just collecting trash, this year it was also sorted for recycling purposes.  Volunteers were able to recycle paper, plastic, and organic waste.

The main clean up event took place in Ben Shemen forest, with the participation of 700 schoolchildren, volunteers, and soldiers.  Other clean up events took place all over the country, though, in places such as Tel Hadid, Givatayim, and Yavne.

The volunteers at Ben Shemen forest also had the unique opportunity to see Louis Palmer and his solar powered taxi, which has already traveled 60,000 kilometers without a drop of fuel.  “My aim,” said Palmer, “is to show millions of people all over the world that we don’t need fuel.  It is an excellent solution for the future, and I hope that in another few years we will all be driving cars like this one.”

Toby Perry of KKL-JNF said that Cleanup Day is “when you can get out of the office and get connected to the forest.  It is the best way to give a personal example and demonstrate to the public that it is important to clean up.”

: Jerusalem Post

Read more about other Middle Eastern clean up activities::
Israeli Activists Urge Pope To Help Clean Up Jordan River
Segway “Police” Achieve Fame for UAE Corniche Cleanup
25,000 Litter-Busters To Clean Up Dubai October 26

Image via: Sascha Emi

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Children as young as ten are making a living by sorting through rubbish on the outskirts of the West Bank city Hebron. Following the second intifada in 2000, hundreds of Palestinians previously employed in Israel found themselves without work. By sorting and selling recyclables, often at night, young boys and grown men are able to provide a small amount of money for their families. A recycling initiative of sorts, Maan news agency nonetheless describe an unbearable scene of rotting organic matter and “chemical effluvia.”

Rubbish from neighboring Palestinian towns is brought to this dump, surrounded by cypress-tipped hills and nearby olive groves. Often the trucks come at night, which encourages workers to stay at on site in a makeshift shanty village.

Shacks made from old wood planks and covered with tarpaulin or plastic trash bags are temporary housing for trash workers eager to make a bit of  extra money or reluctant to travel to their home town Yatta. Maan says that the workers sort through vegetable scraps, washing liquid bottles, old clothes, and soda cans.

To cope with the sun and stench, some of the boys wear Kaffiyas over their heads. They pull anything valuable from the dump – wood, aluminum, plastic, steel – and add it to their pile.

One boy told the news agency that they each have their own pile and there are no bosses. Some of the materials are transported to Hebron, where they are consolidated and sold for reuse in Israel and elsewhere.

Clothes that can be washed and reused are kept aside for themselves.

Some of the boys left school and started working in the dump after the main breadwinners were no longer able to provide – either because of an injury, or in one case, death.

One boy told Maan the “Jewish garbage is better than Arab garbage” because it contains more steel. This work fetches up to 30 Shekels or $8 a day.

More on the West Bank:

International Geographers Explore the West Bank In Search of Common Ground

The “Golden Sheep” West Bank Cheese Incident

Powering West Bank Geothermally

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