How People In Gaza Turn Trash Into Cash | World Wide Waste

These plastic fibers started as buckets pulled from the trash. Now they're used to make rugs as well as prayer mats. At the Hijazi straw mat factory in Gaza, working with plastic waste is the only option. Iyad Hijazi used to import virgin plastic from Saudi Arabia, but since 2007 blockades have made it harder to get anything in or out of Gaza. Stocks of all kinds of important items are down while trash is piling up. So people across the Strip are finding all kinds of ways to run their businesses with materials recovered from landfills. So how do you deal with trash in a conflict zone? We went to the Gaza Strip to see how people make their living off worldwide waste. Donkey carts filled with plastic buckets pull up to this factory almost every day. Workers saw the buckets into pieces to fit into shredders. Washing machines remove any dirt and residue. Some excess water is drained and the pieces are added to the dryer to spin out the rest. This type of plastic retains its strength after recycling, despite being incredibly lightweight. The plastic is poured into bags and sent upstairs using a lift. Next, plastic bits get loaded into the hopper where they will be heated to their melting point. Adding dyes adjusts the color. Then the pliable sludge falls down to an extruder. Before being pushed out into long strands. Water cools the plastic until it solidifies. The strands get cut down back into a granule size and end up in these huge sacks. The granules are then sent back downstairs. They're heated up again before being poured into machines specially sized for the mat threads. This time, the machines cut the plastic threads to the perfect size for weaving. Workers bundle the filaments and walk them over to the weaving machines. The factory can produce up to 500 meters of mats every day. But that's way down compared to previous years. When Eyad's father opened it in 1986, the factory ran 24 hours a day with almost 30 employees. Now there's only one shift a day and conflict often dictates work schedules. Israeli airstrikes damaged the factory multiple times, most recently in May 2023. Eyad still hasn't been able to rebuild. Many of the materials needed to rebuild the factory are hard to find or too expensive. Like cement, which was largely banned until 2021. The factory can't handle more than 100 tons of cement a day. Eyad keeps running despite the challenges of operating in a conflict zone. In Gaza, electricity is unreliable, running only 14 hours a day on average. This is a problem for us because we have a place to heat and start working that needs two hours of heating. Power in Gaza mainly comes from two sources. An old diesel-powered plant that only meets about one fifth of electricity demand and power lines from Israel. But diesel is expensive and there's little place to store large amounts. The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated parts of the world. It's been an occupied territory since 1967. In 2007, Hamas took control of Gaza. Israel, the United States and the European Union label it a terrorist organization. Since then, Israel has restricted the movement of people and goods in and out of the 25 mile strip of land. The blockade cut off materials that could be used to manufacture weapons and for other military purposes, according to the Israeli government. We cannot allow materials that can be used for weapons that would be used against us to cross the border. But the list also included a lot of basic items needed to repair infrastructure. Over time, supplies of building materials, fuel for cars and power plants, parts to fix broken machinery and even some medical equipment have periodically run out. And the garbage heaps kept getting bigger and bigger. Mohamed Sabri Musleh, a director at the Water and Environment Quality Authority in Gaza, says the territory produces over 2,000 metric tons of solid waste per day. Gaza's recycling centers can't handle all of it, and the blockade often prevents waste from being shipped to other countries for processing. So a lot of garbage ends up in the strip's two official landfills, where it's regularly burned. But because the landfills lack proper firefighting equipment, large fires can burn for days. This one in March 2023 took more than three days to control, and Gaza called for international aid to help put it out. There's so much trash that illegal dump sites sometimes become the only option. Since the start of the blockades, unemployment has hovered around 45 percent in Gaza. And the illegal dump sites have become a source of income for trash pickers, who sometimes burn electronic waste to salvage copper and other metals. That creates clouds of toxic smoke linked to increased cancer rates and respiratory problems for Gaza's children. Even though most Gazans suffer from the waste problems, those trash piles have become a resource. In 2019, one man began recycling paper waste, turning it into trays for transporting eggs. Akram spent two years perfecting the recipe. Workers first rip the trash paper and mix it with water. The proper ratio produces a moldable, thick slurry. Molds press the slurry into the proper shape, squeezing out the extra water. Then they dry in the harsh Mediterranean sun. Now Akram employs seven people to make the trays. Unlike the raw materials needed over at the mat factory, egg cartons remained off the list of banned imports. But local farmers prefer the recycled cartons. The quality of the egg cartons is very, very poor. But the quality of the eggs we have is very good. We don't break the eggs. And every egg is precious. More than 60 percent of people in Gaza are food insecure. Isolated from the rest of the world, Gaza has been called the world's largest open-air prison. But it has about 25 miles of Mediterranean coastline. The sea is our only breath in Gaza. We go there and we're sad and we're happy at the sea. Ali Mohanna worked with an artist collective to build the Sea is Ours cafe. Planters made from old tires line the path to the entrance. One of the doors came from a refrigerator. When we put these things in, we say, OK, now we need a door. We don't go to the traditional choice of making a door like the one we know. We look for something that we can use as a door. And windows from an old washing machine. Inside, the artists run a community center that teaches locals how to reuse everything. These things encourage us to change our view of these things so that they can be reused. The cafe allows customers to donate waste from their homes in lieu of cash. Despite the war around them, the artists cobbled together a mini oasis by the ocean, spending their days working on community art projects. The cafe and community space provide a modest income for the half a dozen people who work here. And while today seems like a peaceful evening, there are always reminders of the effects of war. Ali is in talks with the Gaza government to open more community centers, especially for children. The conflict has forced Ali and Iyad, as well as many other Palestinians, to become unlikely recyclers, making the best out of a dire situation. I can't say that the government or anyone else is going to help us. But it's my first dream to protect the environment in general.