The people of this Japanese town have to compost all their food waste and sort their trash into 34 different bins (see below) at their community’s “zero waste” center. No joking around with trash. Check out the BBC video.
I don’t want to even start thinking about what we do in Jordan with trash. It’s all mixed for sure. Does anyone of you know what happens to Amman’s trash? Is it burned? Buried? Is there any recycling effort (formal or informal)?
I really would like to know..
Comments
7 responses to “Japan’s zero waste town: recycle everything!”
ammans waste is being recycled. bio-waste is turned to methane then into electricity (http://www.ammancity.gov.jo/arabic/news/n.asp?news_id=365)
other waste is collected my houndreds if not thousends of pickups and poor people collecting plastic, aluminium, glas, old tv radios, furnisher etc.
This is not all good news btw!
To be honest, when I
as a Jordanianfirst arrived Japan, it was very annoying for me to divide trash into 5 piles as its done in Tokyo as a standrad. I cant even imagine to divide into more!Its been around 18 months and so far I am having trouble in dividing my trash. Well, what I have gained in 23 years in Jordan cannot be easily overwritten in 18 months, I think. Just throw everything together and we are lucky if the trash is actually INSIDE the basket!
I am dividing into 3 piles so far. Progressing I guess…
I know the following from a research i made 2 summers ago (during one of my attempts to return home and start a business), apparently there are some 15 companies (back then) who are in the garbage collection and sorting business (not the actual recycling) AND an astonishing 7 factories (of the size of a workshops i guess) that actually recycles the collected waste; chiefly paper and turn them into new goods.
I knew of the latter as i read a news article about the 7 factories complaining that the 15 collection companies prefer to EXPORT the rejects (paper piles, iron …etc) to other countries (Europe and china) over selling it locally to them
and i thought i had a novel idea of collecting paper from the bins next to printers filled with unapproved-by-the-manager presentation slides from “corporate” offices and pressure-pack them into small cubes to be shipped to china for recycling!
As for Amman’s trash other than the ones set on fire on site, i think its buried near by the sewage dump somewhere around Ein El-Basha.
Thanks for highlighting on this crucial issue.
You reminded me a short video I’ve watched a year ago entitled “The Story of Stuff”.
This video is simply a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world.
Thought out the video the presenter tries to convince you
with facts and figureshow recycling is not enough to solve the problem! because simply it can do nothing compared to our huge consumption of limited natural resources.You may find this interesting video and other information shared here: http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html
Recycle industry is covering big sector of national income but I dont agree with bashar on two things
first : most of the bio waste is recycled properly
second : not only poor people could work with plastic and metal collection , it involves also the middle class people who could make a very good income from this , which reaches hundreds and even thousands of Dinars (JD) monthly.
I believe that we waste too much that many people could benefit from our trash
For years we used to take our newspapers and paper waste to an environmental centre in Shmeisani for recycling, they had two big ‘cages’ for paper and carton; but after share3 il ‘thakafeh’ opened it seems people started throwing all kinds of rubbish into the cages and they stopped the recycling service. It’s a real shame. If you do find out about alternative places please let me know!!
I am all for recycling…
I did write about our trash from a slightly different perspective… here is the link if you are interested
http://shalabieh.wordpress.com/2008/06/29/do-you-think-about-your-trash/
we do have some recycling efforts and the biggest one is the the people collecting cans and selling them for money.
I have a friend to divides up her trash and recycles actively. She is the only one I know who does this.
I would love to see more formal efforts. We need to go green before our planet dies.