Most people in the Middle East, however; due to chronic water scarcities, have seldom seen this little squiggly creature that is often found in home gardens in Europe and North America.

Known as the common redworm or earthworm, these amazing creatures are one of Mother Nature’s  biological wonders for eating their way through organic waste.

The value of this little creature in breaking down and consuming garbage has led Egypt to turn to earthworms to save its environment by literally eating their way through mountains of organic waste products.

The idea of using redworms to consume left-over food wastes, paper products and other organic based items has inspired an Israeli agritech firm, Agrolan to sell red worm colonies to people as a green way to rid them of organic garbage as well as produce valuable compost material for gardens.

Make worm-led compost

You can always get chickens to eat your organic waste, like Karin does at her city chicken coop. But if you don’t have space for chickens or goats, earthworms, the red variety is a perfect way to make your own factory for rich, nutrient compost.

Agrolan sells earthworms for about $16 a box. They also sell  all kinds of agtech equipment;  including advanced drip irrigation systems, sensors for plants,  and weather monitoring devices.

The introduction of redworms for a greener way to dispose of food wastes is a new concept for Agrolan,
which grows and sells them to people who want a more environmentally friendly way to rid themselves of garbage while producing  compost for home gardens.

“Raising worms is an educational experience that enriches the whole family; and of course they make an important contribution to the environment,  eating unwanted household trash and providing a natural source of compost,”  says Agrolan CEO Yehuda Glikman.

For a modest price Agrolan will deliver a small container “batch” of red worms, which are enough for the purchasers to start their own worm bed. Glickman adds that the worms should be kept in a dark, moist place, preferably in a clear plastic container so children can better watch the worms grow.

A worm population can double in size in a three month period. In addition to producing compost their excrement, the worms also produce liquids that are good for the earth environment they are introduced into.

More about composting and using animals to eat garbage:

Cairo Sustainably Manages Garbage with Unionized Pigs and Rag Pickers
Egypt turns to earthworms to save its environment
Make Greener Teens Through Composting

Image of worms from Shutterstock

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Efforts to find solutions to Cairo Egypt’s mounting garbage problems have ranged from allowing hundreds of thousands of pigs to eat the city’s organic wastes’ to using rag pickers to sort through the mountains of garbage that have accumulated.

Cairo is one of the world’s most populated and congested cities and since the beginning of the 2011 Arab Spring protests cleaning up is paramount.

Cleaning up mountains of garbage in a city of nearly eight million people crowded into a metropolitan land area of 453 square kilometres has never been an easy task. One of the ways in which large amounts of organic wastes have been dealt with has been to allow the use of pigs owned by minority Christian populations to consume organic wastes such as rotting fruit and vegetables, leftover foodstuffs and other “materials”.

These pigs are owned by people who are known as “Zabaleen”, which translated literally means “garbage people” and derived from the Arabic work zebala which means garbage.

RELATED: Tetra Pak’s sustainability efforts in Cairo’s recycling business.

This method involving pigs nearly came to an abrupt halt in 2009 when the Egyptian government decided to cull around 300,000 pigs in response to a scare involving the world-wide swine flu virus. Some people say that the virus was just an excuse to rid the predominantly Muslim city of swine.

The Zabaleen have been efficient in sorting out reusable and recyclable items from garbage, resulting in these modern day rag pickers to become known as efficient recyclers. Whole families are often involved in this business, including young children who are taught what to look for in the piles of wastes that are still prevalent on city streets and neighborhoods.

Losing so many pigs at once (the government made the pig culling decision within the span of 24 hours) resulted in a great loss of livelihood for pig owners whose animals were worth a significant amount of money.

“Every family had at least a dozen animals and could get about $1,400 for the sale of a pig. That gave them some emergency money when they needed it. The rag collector’s income fell by half,” said Ezzat Naem, head of the Zabaleen union.

Another union spokesperson added that the slaughter of the pigs ended a very efficient way to rid city streets of rotting organic garbage.

But now the Zabaleen are becoming more recognized as an efficient solution for getting rid of Cairo’s garbage. Members of the Zabaleen union have made agreements with city waste disposal companies to work together with them to help clean up the immense piles of garbage. The pigs are also making a quiet comeback, as their role to ridding the city from its waste problems is becoming more appreciated.

The Zabaleen’s role in ridding Cairo of its garbage can be summed up in a comment made by Zabaleen union head Ezzat Naem, a 50 something year old Zabaleen garbage collector who has been involved in this work for nearly his entire life:  “We are the ones who have always been treated as a backward people; yet we have devised a more ecological model for ridding Cairo of its garbage.”

As such, there now appears to be more appreciation for pigs and rag pickers in Egypt’s largest city. At least by this Green Prophet.

More article about Cairo’s garbage and pigs issues:

Cairo’s Waste-Eating Pigs Make a Quiet Comeback

Zabaleen Film Portrays Cairo’s Garbage City People

Egypt Culls 300,000 Pigs in Response to Swine Flu Virus

Photo of young Zabaleen trash collectors: wikipedia

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Greenpeace Israel calls on Jerusalem and other municipalities to stop recycling their promises and start recycling trash.

Recycling has improved over the past decade in Israel.  Hiria, a large garbage dump in Tel Aviv, has transformed into a recycling center, metals are starting to be recycled, and some urban recycling bins have become targets for artists.  But there is still a long way to go.  Organic waste still ends up in Israeli landfills for the most part, despite the promises of several municipalities.  Greenpeace Israel is starting a new campaign tomorrow morning to call these municipalities’ bluff.  Their first target is Jerusalem.

Before the municipal budgets for 2012 are finalized, Greenpeace Israel intends to call on all Israeli cities to implement more sustainable recycling and composting solutions.

“City by city, we will ask mayors to take responsibility and implement a plan to separate waste at the source and install two bins (organic and dry) for each home, building or business in the city,” writes Greenpeace Israel.

Of 251 local authorities, only 31 have implemented the Environmental Protection Ministry’s project and requested assistance in separating waste at the source.  Of these 31, only one – Emek Hefer – has actually succeeded in separating organic waste throughout the entire municipality.

Seven other municipalities are currently in various stages of separating organic waste at the source in certain neighborhoods.

These are success stories, but on too small a scale.  According to Greenpeace Israel, these are “miniscule amounts in relation to the great quantities of garbage, and residents cannot properly recycle if the municipal authorities do not create an appropriate infrastructure to separate waste.”

Read more about the Greenpeace campaign on the event’s page on Facebook (in Hebrew).

Read more about recycling in Israel::
Organic Waste Collection and Composting in the Works for Israeli Municipalities
Recycling Bins Take the Form of Art in Tel Aviv
Finally, Koala Recycling Solutions Offers A Way to Recycle Aluminum Cans and Other Metals in Israel
Hiria: A Garbage Dump Turned Recycling Dream

Image via: Leah Jones

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Mekano Architects have dreamed up the ultimate solution for Cairo’s filthy Garbage City. Long an eye-sore and public health menace, the area on the outskirts of Egypt’s capital was once a recycling center for the Zabaleen. They sorted through waste and recycled it, and used pigs to devour organic waste. After swine flu emerged, however, the government culled the Zabaleen’s pigs and that waste has since stewed in its own fermenting juices. Mekano aims to put the resulting methane, and the towers of junk, to good, building use.These poles will serve several purposes: not only will they support the stacked, pre-fabricated modular homes, but they will also serve as conduits for biogas, water and electricity. And they will serve as “wind-stalks” that can harvest wind power as energy.

What are currently piles of steaming organic waste spewing methane gas will become energy-producers. Mekano will create a significantly more safe environment for the Zabbaleen by harvesting the very thing that currently pollutes their environment.

Much of the non-organic waste will be used in part as building materials to create a vertical city complete with private spaces, parks, sport facilities, and plazas. The architects also propose to create terraces that will harvest rainwater and allow residents to grow small gardens.

Whether this project can become a reality given Egypt’s political uncertainty remains to be seen. But it’s an excellent concept. An out of the box concept. And we love those.

:: Inhabitat

More on urban environments and architecture in the Middle East:

Dodeca Architects Infuses Love and Healing

Dubai’s Holey O-14 Finally Opens

Harassmap Allows Women Cyclists in Cairo Report Abuse Via SMS

The post Mekano Designs Renewable Energy Skyscraper For Cairo’s Filthy Garbage City appeared first on Green Prophet.

Waste, after corruption and smog, is probably Egypt’s number one nemesis. Everywhere one travels – even the most popular tourist spots – is overrun with organic and solid rubbish. Finally, the Ministry of Agriculture is getting serious about addressing the problem.

Although not a solution for solid waste and recyclables, the government is considering ordering tons of special earthworms from Australia that are capable of processing huge quantities of agricultural and organic waste, as well as polluted water. The worms then create a byproduct that can be recycled.

In Egypt, 34,000 tons of organic waste are produced each day. 32% of that is generated in Cairo, while organic waste from Giza, Alexandria, and Cairo put together account for over 50% of the country’s total waste. Pigs used to treat waste previously were culled following the international swine flu scare.

Today most of the organic waste is buried while the agricultural waste is burned, contributing to the black cloud that is ruinous to air quality and citizen health in the country’s capital. The Egyptian government is beginning to realize that a lot of the waste can be recycled, that it is a natural resource.

Enter Australia’s superpower earthworms from Australia.

According to Al-Masry Al-Youm, 1,000 tons of earthworms can weasel their way through 1,000 tons of organic waste every day. In the process, they create a byproduct that renders soil very fertile. They can even be used to treat sewage water, as the worms are able to munch through heavy elements and acidic water, creating water clean enough to use for irrigation.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture’s Climate Research Department, 26-28 million tons of waste can be recycled every year to create fertilizers and even natural gas.

The Center for Agricultural Research intends to use the worms for five years to clean up the current environmental problems. Surplus worms will be used as a high-protein feed for fish and poultry.

:: Al-Masry Al-Youm

More on Egypt environmental issues:

Out of Sight, Out of Mind. How Egypt Cleans Up

Black Smoke Chokes Cairo’s Skies

Egyptian Palm Tree Faces Extinction

The post Egypt Turns To Earthworms To Save Its Environment appeared first on Green Prophet.

It’s easier to get Israelis excited about blondes than about composting, but if you get their eco-attention using a blonde?  That’s a different story.  Atar Friedman, a beautiful young Israeli blonde with a mission, has been trying to get Israelis more conscious about waste and composting.  Now the face of a new garbage sorting campaign, Friedman says that she’s “very proud to be the dumb blonde who models garbage.”  Blending glamour with garbage, maybe Friedman has got what it takes to improve the country’s increasing trash problem.This is not the first time that Friedman has been in the public’s green eye.  A couple years ago she participated in a documentary television program called “Tzomet Drachim” (Hebrew for “Crossroads”) that showed how three people (Friedman included) reached a crossroads in their lives in terms of green living.

During “Tzomet Drachim”, Friedman participated in a composting course given by Tammy Zori at Tel Aviv’s City Tree, a green housing project that teaches urban sustainability methods.

She said that the composting course was a turning point for her.  “As part of the course, we were asked to bring in garbage from our home, and so it happened that in one moment I understood what bothered me about everything I had done until that point, including the effort focused on biology.  It was the moment when I realized how alienated and superficial the way we live and work is.  The proximity to the compost made me look inward, not just deep into the waste, but also deep into my lifestyle.”

Friedman added that “the moment I understood compost I understood everything, mostly how crazy it is to ignore the terrible damage we are creating.  Suddenly everything fell into place like a giant puzzle, because I also saw myself, my health, within this great system.  How?  Whoever deals with compost and looks at it no longer wants to bring packaging into his home and understands why food whose leftovers cannot be thrown into the composter is also food that no one wants to and should not place in his body.”

: Image via: NRG
:: Haaretz

Read more about waste and composting in Israel::
From Capitalistic Pig to Living in a City Tree
Going on a Picnic to Tel Aviv’s Garbage Mountain
Organic Waste Collection and Composting in the Works for Israeli Municipalities

The post Blondes Have More Fun Composting appeared first on Green Prophet.

By 2020, Morocco plans to install a solid waste treatment plant in every one of the country’s urban centers.

I knew a woman who had questionable hygiene and eventually became chronically depressed. At first her car and home had the odd coke bottle and junk food wrapper tossed on the floor, but in time, both became major dumps. And the bigger the dump, the less strength she had to do anything about it. This is how our global waste problem feels.

What once started with the odd chocolate wrapper on the street has metastasized into heaps of the stuff. Everywhere we look there are seemingly insurmountable mounds of bottles and plastic bags and banana peels, the disposal of which seems impossible. But Morocco has pulled itself together and demonstrated that it’s not impossible, nor that hard, to come up with a better plan.

James Martone with the World Bank reports that Morocco recognized that city garbage dumps are  environmentally unhealthy, and a serious public health concern. With 6 million tonnes of trash a year to contend with, and a series of informal dumps, the country needed a clever new plan.

Mehdi Chalabi from the Department of Environment said that by 2014, landfills will be covered and closed, posing less threat, and that by 2020, all of Morocco’s urban centers will have their own solid waste plant.

With help from the World Bank, they established the Oum Aza Cooperative solid waste treatment facility just outside the capital Rabat. 1300 tonnes from thirteen communities is offloaded at this new plant, where waste goes through various sorting stages.

First organic waste is separated from glass, metals, plastics, and cartons, which is then sent by conveyor belt to the second floor where recyclables are bagged for future sale.  The organic waste is transferred to a giant compost heap. Also, liquid waste is prevented from seeping into the soil.

Not only is the waste system more centralized, but also more egalitarian. Former dump workers were transferred to the landfill where they work under a union run by themselves.

Hanan, who manhandles trash with only one glove, prefers the new facility. “Trash used to be dumped everywhere,” she said, “now there are rules.” Another employee said that sorting in one place makes a difficult job less so.

Getting a handle on trash is better for the environment, and for the people.

:: CNN

More solid waste plans in the Middle East:

Waste management | Green Prophet

Lebanon Launches New Recycling Campaign, “Think Before You Throw

Morocco Trash

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Hey, are you gonna use that? Israeli residents may soon be able to put their banana peels to good use.

Organic waste – such as vegetable and fruit peels, egg shells, pits, etc. – constitutes a significant part of any household garbage bin, but it doesn’t have to. These materials are valuable stuff, which could easily be composted and transformed into fertilizer that helps plants and trees grow (instead of filling up a landfill).  But composting requires space and knowledge, and in an urban environment many people may not be inclined towards taking the time and effort to do it.

But what if it were all set up for you? What if all you had to do was separate your organic waste from the rest of your trash and your municipality would take care of the rest?

Hopefully, in Israel, that may soon be an option. The Israeli Environmental Protection Ministry is now pushing a Packaging Bill that would provide a sustainable solution for all types of discarded consumer packaging. Simultaneously, it is offering NIS 200 million of assistance (about $50,000) to local authorities to move towards “separation at the source” within the next three years.

Separation at the source means that the different types of waste (such as organic and recyclable) would be separated on the household level, in different receptacles. In order to enforce this, local authorities would need to distribute different collection bins for organic and non-organic waste.

While obviously more environmentally friendly, moving to separation at the source and using organic waste would also save the country money. Six million tons of waste are now generated in Israel each year, 75 percent of which is interred in landfills. Each ton of dumped garbage costs NIS 185 (about $40) – and a lot of greenhouse gas emissions.

Michaela Polansky, the Environmental Projects Coordinator at Urbanics, said that “what has happened over the last two years is that the local authorities have realized that something has to change. Primarily because of the landfill levy.”

Soon enough, hopefully, garbage will be put to better (and cheaper) use.

::Jerusalem Post

Read more about organic waste and composting:
NatureMill’s Urban Compost Device for Composting in Cities and Apartments
Meet Your Garden’s Best Friend, the Earthworm
Organic Waste Converter “Hands-free Food Waste System” May Work Better Than Composting

Image via: James Kamo

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Before its garbage situation gets out of control, Lebanon is urging citizens to Think Before You Throw.

With the average Lebanese person allegedly producing 1 kilogram of waste a day, the situation is pretty trashy (especially when Lebanon garbage trucks dump into the sea).  Delegates attending the launch of Lebanon’s new recycling campaign, Think Before You Throw, last Thursday were made aware that this amounts to over 4,000 tons of garbage daily (or, enough trash to fill a football stadium to the brim).  The national recycling campaign is attempting to urge people to start separating their garbage into recyclable and organic bins.

The garbage will then be sorted by a private enterprise or by one of 18 solid-waste management plants being built around the country.  These facilities are being built as part of a European Commission initiative.

Patrick Laurent, the European Commission ambassador to Lebanon, explained that while workers at garbage sorting plants are capable of separating waste it is more productive and cost-effective to have the waste sorted in the home.

“It is essential to put the Lebanese citizen at the center of this initiative,” he said.  “Beyond issues of the initial investment and financial sustainability, an efficient solid waste management strategy must also involve a reduction in the volume of waste and a change in attitudes.”

Local NGOs will be targeting young people in Lebanon in schools, in order to instill a sense of environmental responsibility from a young age.

:: The Daily Star

Read more about other sustainable initiatives in Lebanon::

Making Magestic (and Biblical) Cedars of Lebanon Sustainable in Our Times

Darreja Campaign Encourages Sustainable Transportation in Lebanon

Take Your Team to Lebanon’s Ecovillage

The post Lebanon Launches New Recycling Campaign, "Think Before You Throw" appeared first on Green Prophet.

For years, composting has been considered as the environmentally best method for  disposing of organic waste material, especially ones like the NatureMill Urban Composter, we wrote about in January. But it now appears that there may be an even better way of turning food and other organic wastes into usable compost material in less than one day, as reported in an article in Dubai’s Khaleej Times. The “Hands-free Food Waste System” which runs silently on electricity, and has been used successfully in Norway for over a year, was presented during the  Middle East Waste Summit (MEWS) 2010 in the UAE Emirate of Dubai. There, 49% of its waste material is organic, especially food and other organic material from hotels, restaurants, and catered affairs such as conventions and exhibitions.

The device is being marketed by a joint venture between EnvironPac, Norway, and a company named Excel Industry Co. LLC. As compared to composters, which take up to two weeks to create usable compost from organic waste (even with air circulators, like the NatureMill device) the “hands free food waste system” presented at the MEWS conference is said to reduce 90% of the waste’s original mass within 18 hours after being put into the “the large cuboid facility that consists of compartments which ensure organic waste is converted into an environment-friendly, reusable content with the push of a button.”

The final product, after undergoing a drying and sterilization process, is a very fine and pliable compost material that can be used in gardens, on lawns, and for agriculture. This is a vast improvement to the way this waste material is now disposed of in Dubai and other UAE locations, where landfills have been the usual destination for this kind of waste material.

The potential for such a device, not only in the UAE, but other parts of the Middle East as well, is enormous. Most countries in the region use either landfills or simply dump waste materials into the sea, as has often happened in countries like Lebanon, where we wrote that “garbage trucks dump straight into the sea.”

The device would also be good for helping Israel find a better solution to its increasing waste disposal problem, that is now being consigned to large landfills in the country’s southern regions following the closure of large “garbage mountains” like the former Hiriya garbage mound near the coastal city of Tel Aviv.

And since half of it is organic in nature, this new device that was presented at the MEWS summit in Dubai may prove to have a two-fold use as it will also provide more topsoil for agriculture.

Good top soil is a commodity that appears to be in short supply in this region; and mycorrhiza fungus is being considered as a way to make existing high saline soil more suited for agriculture. So in the end, all that food being thrown out into landfills in Dubai can now be put to good use as soil improving compost.

Image via dnorman

::Khaleej Times

More articles on composting and waste disposal problems in the Middle East:

NatureMills Urban Composter is Good for Even City Balconies

Lebanon’s Sidon Garbage Dump More Serious Than Just the Smell

Former Hiriya Garbage Mound Now Slated for Public Park

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