Every Easter in my life has included the après holiday hunt for the lone lost egg. After dying and decorating, hiding and hunting, one egg always gets left behind.  It takes a week before its rotten stink leads reveals its hiding place – stuck behind a cushion, tucked in a shoe, growing mold in a flowerpot.

It’s a family joke; a holiday tradition.  In a deodorized and sanitized first-world society, we’re mostly removed from the reality of natural decay.  The following stats come from the U.S. National Park Service on how long it takes your trash to decompose. 

• Paper towel – 2 weeks

• Banana peels – 3 weeks

• Paper bag – 1 month

• Newspaper – 1.5 months

• Apple core – 2 months

• Cardboard – 2 months

• Orange peels – 6 months

• Untreated plywood – 3 years

• Waxed milk cartons – 5 years

• Cigarette butts – 10 years

• Leather shoes – 35  years

• Tin can – 50 years

• Styrofoam cups – 50 years

• Plastic containers – 80 years

• Plastic bottles – 450 years

• Disposable diapers – 550 years

• Plastic bags – 1000 years

That list is notional, since materials decompose differently depending on temperature, oxygen levels, presence of water, and chemical recipe of surrounding matter.  And material degrades differently in the ocean.

It’s springtime, a time of renewal. But maybe spend a little time pondering the death of things. It may influence your product choices, and ensure that out longest lasting legacy isn’t the trash we generate.

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Better yet, show the video to the shortest people in your life to teach them the facts, which was the intent behind this video created by Emma Bryce for TED-Ed, the TED-ex affiliate custom made for young students.

In a modern riff on the three bears (or three little pigs), the plot traces the life cycles of three different plastic bottles. One ends up in a landfill, another in our oceans, and the happiest bottle lives on forever in a recycling loop. Check out the video below.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/_6xlNyWPpB8[/youtube]

Here in Jordan there is a fourth, more common afterlife for plastic bottles.  Most people in Amman seem afflicted with a strange and consistent loss of fine motor control as soon as they take that last sip, dropping the bottle wherever they happen to be. I mention Amman as it’s where I live, I see this shocking malady firsthand. The disease is an equal-opportunity affliction, striking men, women, and children on a daily basis.  I understand that cases are showing up across the Middle East, less so in major Gulf cities where the infected are threatened with steep littering fines.

Bryce is a young educator who has crafted over a dozen videos for the TED-Ed platform on topics ranging from how specific body parts function to an exploration of the vanishing honeybee.  TED-Ed is a service designed to capture and amplify the voice of the world’s greatest teachers. For a complete rundown of TED-Ed, see the video below.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/FfJ5XG5i2aw[/youtube]

Know an extraordinary educator with a green message to share? Nominate them on the TED-Ed website (link here) for an opportunity to partner with talented animators to produce a new library of curiosity-igniting videos. In addition to hosting the videos, TED-Ed works with teachers to review lessons and edit them into a less-than-10 minute format.

Lessons worth sharing, indeed.

Image of plastic pollution from Shutterstock

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The United Arab Emirates (UAE) does everything big, including recycling, and this week they’ve officially opened their first plant dedicated to recycling cars! An estimated 11,000 UAE vehicles get scrapped every month.

Some simply reach their shelf-life, others are abandoned at airport parking lots and city back streets by debt-ridden expatriates and native boys who no longer can pay for their luxury toys.

Now all that automotive litter will be put to better use: “This is the only facility today that can deal with end-of-life vehicles in the country. We encourage insurance companies, dealers and government departments to use this service,” said Najib Faris, chief commercial officer of Bee’ah, the plant operator.

Dumped cars will be manually dismantled, then sliced and diced to allow valuable metals to be salvaged, and plastics, tires, upholstery, cables and mechanical parts to be recycled or refurbished within the Bee’ah compound.  Previously, old clunkers were sold to scrap dealers, who stripped off spare parts and sold the car carcasses on the international market.

Workers separate cables, which are sent to electronic waste traders, and foam cushions that can be recycled locally. Window glass is pulverized and used for landfill cover. The company aims to sell engines and transmissions to international companies that refurbish them.

The facility began trial operations in October and has already processed about 350 old cars.  Its capacity is much greater;  Darker El Rabaya, director of waste processing at Bee’ah, told The National that its “shredder” (the equipment for processing car bodies) has a capacity of 60 vehicles an hour.

“Recycling consumes a lot less energy and a lot less water than producing virgin materials,” said Faris. It also diverts waste from landfills.

While the facility is now technically ready, a key issue for the next few months is to ensure a steady supply. As long as car dumping remains an Emirati epidemic, that ought not be a problem.

We’ve heard that some Emiratis prefer to just abandon unwanted cars, even Mercedes, Jags and BMWs at the airport, rather than get them scrapped. This initiative could change that.

Image of the Bee’ah “shredder” from The National

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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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A new school year starts this week and, in the annual house-scan for fresh notebooks and pens, I unearth more mysterious clutter, stuff that grows like Chia Pets in underused drawers and cupboards.  You probably have the same problem: business cards from ages-ago jobs, dusty bottles of antique spices, a stack of Teletubbies paper plates (that little birthday girl is now pushing 16).

My greenest friend observed the clean-out and told me to chuck it all in the compost heap. A few minutes spent Googling, and it seems her tip is legit. These odd items might make your garden thrive:

1. Old paper business cards
2. Outdated herbs and spices
3. Bamboo skewers
4. Dryer lint
5. The contents of your vacuum cleaner bag
6. Wine corks
7. Paper egg cartons
8. Toothpicks
9. Pet hair
10. Human hair
11. Matches
12. Pencil shavings
13. Paper napkins
14. Crepe paper streamers
15. Old potpourri
16. Latex condoms
17. Nail clippings
18. Feathers
19. Dog food
20. Cardboard rolls from toilet paper and paper towels

Author disclosure: I mostly trust my friends, and my friends are mostly comedians. Have you dropped these ingredients in your own fertilizer factories with good results, or am I about to become another cautionary tale?

Image of women farmers from Shutterstock

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For such a tiny nation, Kuwait produces some of the world’s highest per capita amounts of trash

Rubbish may not be the glamorous topic to think about but it is probably the most relatable. We all throw out trash such as packaging which only seems to serve us momentarily or food which wasn’t eaten in time. In Kuwait, citizens are particularly familiar with trash as they generate among the highest per capita amounts of waste in the world. The tiny nation produces more than 2 million tonnes of solid waste which has disastrous consequences. The main form of solid waste disposal used is landfill burial which comes with its own set of problems – as the tyre fire which broke earlier this year demonstrated.

Kuwait has 18 landfills; 14 are now closed and four of which are still in operation. Indeed most landfills have been closed for more than 20 years as they are located near residential and commercial areas. The migration of water which has passed through the landfills and leached some of the constituents of the waste solids is a real concern for those living close to the dumping sites. According to EcoMena, “groundwater contamination has emerged as a serious problem because groundwater occurs at shallow depths throughout the country.”

As well as ‘hiding’ lots of rubbish, landfills generate huge amounts of toxic gases such as methane and are plagued with spontaneous fires. Food waste, construction waste, industrial waste and municpal waste are all dumped on the landfills without much regards for their toxic implications. The total land area of Kuwait is around 17,820 sq. km – more than 18 sq. km is occupied by landfills.

Salman Zafar, a renowned expert in waste management and sustainable development explains: “Over the years, most of the dumpsites in Kuwait have been surrounded by residential and commercial areas due to urban development over the years. Uncontrolled dumpsites were managed by poorly-trained staff resulting in transformation of dumpsites in breeding grounds for pathogens, toxic gases and spontaneous fires… Some of the landfills are located on the edges of residential, as is the case of Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh and Al-Qurain sites endangering the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.”

For more waste in the Middle East see: 

Tire Fire In Kuwait Seen From Space 

Libya’s Post Revolution Trash and Traffic Problems

The Garbage Women Of Turkey Turn Trash Into Trendsetting Handbags

:: Image of tire fire in Kuwait via EcoMENA.org

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This year’s Abu Dhabi film festival featured two green-themed films aimed at raising awareness of a decidedly un-Hollywood subject: global waste management. Both movies, Trashed and Polluting Paradise, were sponsored by sustainable innovations company Masdar. Trashed follows British actor Jeremy Irons as he globe-trots from Lebanon to Iceland to some of the most visually arresting and disturbing scenes of garbage devastation. Exquisite cinematography and thought-provoking interviews place a frightening scale on our reckless trash generation.  Peek at the path our garbage takes once it leaves our trash bins. Director Candida Brady’s global perspective on pollution is a powerful reminder of our shared responsibility.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/ctf8CWgAQ5g[/youtube]

Turkish-German director Fatih Akın’s documentary on landfills is set in Çamburnu, a mountain village on the Black Sea coast where villagers have lived for centuries cultivating tea and fishing.  The festival website describes Polluting Paradise as shining a “spotlight on a devastating hazard that threatens this idyllic environment: the decision by the Turkish government, made ten years ago, to establish the region’s largest garbage landfill on the outskirts of the town.”

The film tracks transformation of once-lush plantations into barren desert with polluted air, contaminated groundwater, and residual waste flowing to the sea. Akın’s film focuses on villager activism as they protest against policymakers and strive to stem the environmental degradation.

“The film is about human stupidity,” Faith Akın says, “(and) about civil courage.”

[youtube]http://youtu.be/5z2s_klZkFg[/youtube]

Both films (with screeners above) challenge our passivity regarding our constant contribution to the world waste stream. By raising awareness, these movies provide an appropriate opening act for next January’s Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week.

That event will attract 30,000 participants from 150 countries to for  the largest gathering on sustainability in the history of the Middle East.

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Not content to change our consumer culture, which has been vastly destructive not just to the planet, but also to our very social fabric, Google billionaires are supporting a hugely expensive scheme to pull asteroids into the moon’s orbit and mine them for gold, platinum, and other rare earth metals. These will then be used to produce more unessential stuff on earth.

Asteroid Rush

Unfortunately, scientists claim that this not such a wild plan and that it is well within the realm of our technological capability and expertise. But just because we can doesn’t mean we should.

Before we launch into this litany, let’s first go over how a few overgrown boys (and one woman) with too much money on their hands dreamed up this ruinous plan and how they expect to execute it.

The Seattle-based company founded by Aerospace Engineers Eric Anderson and Peter Diamandis (who is also a medical doctor) has attracted a handful of wealthy investors, including former US presidential candidate Ross Perot and Google’s Eric Schmidt and Larry Page.

Advisors include Avatar film director James Cameron, who should know better than to support even more resource extraction, and General T. Michael Moseley, former Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force.

The team plan to launch a $10 million unmanned space craft equipped with telescopes to scout out resource-rich asteroids, and then send in another that will “lasso” these “lumps of rock” and gently bring them into earth’s orbit, where they will be broken down and mined.

Giant lumps of money

Gold, platinum, and rare earth metals such as rhodium taken from these “near Earth asteroids” will be brought to earth. In order to avoid saturating the market, however, and driving down the cost of what are rare, precious, and therefore expensive metals, some may be left in the moon’s orbit where they will be used to make rockets and other things.

According to the company’s website, “asteroids are primordial material left over from the formation of the Solar System. They are scattered throughout it: some pass close to the Sun, and others are found out beyond the orbit of Neptune.” They have a negligible gravity field, so shifting them is unlikely to create any galactic disturbance.

They are attractive because one 500 ton, 7 meter diameter asteroid contains the same quantity of metals that we mine on earth in an entire year. And there are said to be at least 1500 that are within earth’s proximity.

Planetary Resources also admits, “Despite their celestial age, our understanding of asteroids is still in its infancy. However, the more we learn about them, the more enticing destinations they become.”

Mine the landfills instead

The Guardian reports that this plan will cost billions of dollars and will take decades to produce fruit, but the company is convinced they can add trillions of dollars to our global GDP.

And that’s what this whole scheme really boils down to: GDP. Instead of spending that money to feed the billions of people living on the planet, we’re spending it so we can have more batteries and cell phones. All this even though we know that millions of people are starving, others lack access to basic needs such as water, and our own planet is in need of serious ecological restoration.

Instead of re-using the materials that we have on earth, so much of which languishes in landfills in the form of e-waste, instead of cleaning up our own mess, like children, we’re pretending it’s not there. Our shortsightedness, our absolute arrogance, our total disrespect for nature’s rhythms has taken on a whole new, interplanetary dimension.

Can somebody please give these boy-men a board game instead?

:: The Guardian

Image Credit, Asteroid Approaches Earth, Shutterstock

More on Space:

Nader Khalili Built Earth-Buildings Fit for Space

Virgin’s Galactic Space Travel – A Greener Trip From Abu Dhabi to L.A.

Virgin Galactic: Do We Really Need to Send Rich People into Space?

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Dubai Municipality is growing a culture of recycling in both national and expat residents by providing almost 4,000 families with bins for separating household waste. Bin recipients were taught basic recycling principles; families and their maids learned to segregate household waste into food and non-food containers. Collection is via three private waste companies, and the service is free for residents.

Neighboring Sharjah already beat them to the punch, launching a similar project in February, and last year, Green Prophet told you how Abu Dhabi distributed solar-powered recycling bins throughout the capital.

The Abu Dhabi containers house solar panels that power illuminated advertising panels built into bin casings:  the idea is to catch public attention while demonstrating the link between recycling and energy.

Dubai leads the Emirates in per capita trash generating about 2.8 kg of waste each day.

Their project, named “My city…my environment,” was  initially rolled-out in the Mohammed Bin Rashid Housing Establishment. If successful, this one-year trial project will be expanded to all Dubai homes, underscoring the Municipality’s ambitious vision to recycle all of its municipal waste, achieving zero landfills by 2030.

The government isn’t alone in their efforts to lessen the burden on Dubai’s dumps.

For 20 years, The Emirates Environment Group (EEG) has conjured up practical solutions to protect Dubai’s environment, raising awareness and attracting community involvement. Their Waste Management & Recycling Project Group has set up recycling centers and conduct regular recycling collection drives for aluminum, paper, plastic, glass, batteries and toner cartridges.

Private companies also contribute to positive change. Before municipal alternatives existed, grocery chain Spinneys led the way by providing customers with recycling facilities for aluminum cans, paper and plastic bottles. This supermarket retailer has stores throughout the Middle East and North Africa, with locations in Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar, Egypt and the UAE.  In each location they demonstrate a strong corporate social responsibility: handing out biodegradable plastic shopping bags and offering fabric totes for sale.  I wish they’d step it up and ban use of plastic bags altogether.  Perhaps even spearhead a MENA-wide boycott on the poisonous things, but their green efforts to date have been solid.

Emirati’s popular string of gas stations, Emarat, has installed 32 “reverse vending machines” at 16 service stations. These machines can sort, recycle and process a total of 25 tons of waste each year. When users deposit their cans and bottles, the machines dispense raffle coupons that put recyclers in the running to win prizes.

Can any prize-winners tell us if the prizes are sustainable?

Dubai generates 7,800 tons of waste every day. Landfills currently receive 19% of the Emirates’ plastic and paper waste, 6% of its metals, and 3% of its discarded wood.

Dubai boasts Guinness World Records for tallest building, tallest hotel, longest indoor ski run and thickest plate glass wall in an aquarium, to name just a fraction of their dubai-ous achievements. Maybe they can be lured to another world record for quickest end run to zero landfills in an Arab state.

(Image from Wikipedia Commons, Photo by William I. Boarman, United States Geological Survey; bin by Stephen Lock, The National.)

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It’s like the Olympics, but in green building codes: The new Amman headquarters of the World Health Organization (WHO) just grabbed top kudos for green building: Certified Gold under Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), a world standard for green building certification.

Housing both WHO and the Regional Center for Environmental Health Activities inside four stories,  it shrinks the need for newly built space by creating common areas for reception, meeting rooms, library and video conference rooms.

In the end, each occupant needs less total area. The offices are smartly sited to exploit  pre-existing infrastructure and access to public transportation. There’s loads of interior daylighting.  Almost half of all building materials were regional or locally-sourced, and throughout construction, the builders diverted 78% of the waste material from landfills. Green Prophet loves to see green action at work through the entire building lifecycle!

WHO follows on the green heels of the Dutch Embassy in Amman, which became Jordan’s first LEED-certified project in 2010.

Designed by Amman-based Engicon, with LEED consultation provided by Energy Management Services INT, the 3,900 m2 building is the first in Amman – and the first in Jordan! – to achieve a LEED Gold certification.

Jordan Green Building Council tracks progress on thirteen LEED-registered projects in-Kingdom, including the Amman Institute (owned by the Greater Amman Municipality); the Jordan National Financial Center (owned by the Jordan Securities Commission); and the Middle East Insurance Building (owned by the Medical Insurance Company).  Hope WHO’s success has them following this sustainable LEED-er to more Gold.

::Engicon

(Photos from Engicon and Jordan Green Building Council websites)

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