Chapter Nine
Solid Waste
Wastes range from the materials which are discarded in household dustbins to the by-products of industrial, chemical and agricultural activities. Public awareness of the dangerous effect of these wastes in human health and the environment has increased efforts to control waste disposal and management. Unfortunately, these efforts have not begin in the West Bank.
Proper solid waste management is one of the biggest environmental problems in the district. For example, types of refuse produced in Nablus city are brought to an uncontrolled dumping, located in an industrial area approximately 6.5 kilometers from the city.
Domestic Waste
The quantity of solid waste collected from houses, communities and markets varies from 0.9-1.0 kg per person every day. This estimated amount is based on normal values of many countries of the Mediterranean region. Sources of solid waste other than municipal waste may include wrecked cars, metal materials, demolition and construction waste, gardens refuse and other various materials. There is no accurate information regarding the composition of the solid waste generated in Palestine. However, an approximate estimation of the composition is shown in Table 9.1.
Table 9.1: Solid waste compositionMaterial Organic mater Paper & Carton Glass Plastic & Nylon Iron Textile Leather Wood Soil Aluminum
Percent (%) 87 1.5 0.5 4.5 1.5 0.5 0.5 1 3 0
"Source: Nablus Municipality, 93." Clearly, solid waste contains a large amount of organic material. There is little glass and aluminum as these are often sorted out or sold before reaching the dumping site.
Collection Service and Responsibility
Collection of domestic waste in Nablus district is either the responsibility of the municipalities, village councils, associations, the refugee camps administration (UNRWA). Several areas have no party responsible for waste collection, where most of the waste is dumped randomly. ARIJ survey of solid waste practices in the West Bank shows the distribution of responsibilities for domestic waste collection and disposal as in the following table.
Table 9.2: Responsibility for domestic waste collection and disposal (ARIJ Database Survey, 1995) " Responsibility Percentage of Collection & Disposal of waste
Municipalities 23
Village Councils 22
UNRWA 14
Associations 2.4
No (Randomly) 38.6 According to ARIJ survey, 60% of the waste is disposed of in public dumping sites, while 40% of the solid waste is disposed of randomly near houses, or in open spaces on road sides. Often the waste dumped at designated dumping sites or random sites is burned without control.
Collection containers and vehicles currently used by the municipalities, village councils, and UNRWA, vary in number and size. There are approximately 829 collection containers in Nablus district, of which 94% have a capacity of 1.0-4.9 CM and 6% of the containers have a capacity of 5.0-10.0 CM. Vehicles which are used for collection in Nablus district, include 49 hand carts, 16 agricultural tractors and 14 trucks..
Waste Disposal System
The solid waste produced in Nablus city is brought to a dumping site located in the industrial zone, approximately 6.5 km from the center of the city (Figure 9.1). The diverse solid waste produced in Nablus city can be classified as follows:
- Refuse from houses, restaurants, hotels and businesses;
- Refuse from hospitals, clinics and laboratories; and
- Demolition, construction debris, wrecked houses, old cars and refrigerators.
Presently, no efforts are made in the West Bank to prevent air pollution from solid waste disposal. Unloaded refuse is burned in the open air. Air pollution created from burning could cause enormous dangers to the health of the citizens, in particular for those people living close to dumping sites.
According to a survey conducted by the World Service in November 1994, 8 cases of lung cancer were discovered among the inhabitants of the Beit Dajan village, the nearest village to the existing dumping site. It is expected that the lung cancer is due to air pollution from open burning (Nablus Municipality, 1994). Dumping sites are not adequately designed to protect surface ground water. Often waste is dumped into wadis and leachate then percolates to the water system below. Also, the existing dumping sites are not fenced so stray animals are continuously scavenging in the site. More information is given in Appendix 2.
Industrial Waste
Major industrial activities in Nablus district include sweet factories, lathes and blacksmiths, shoes factories and workshops, textile, stone-cutting facilities and quarries, vegetable oil, ghee and detergents industry. There is no separate system for collecting or disposing of industrial wastes, hazardous or nonhazardous.
Around 49 olive mills, either old or semi automatic are operating machines in Nablus district. Four mills are single-lined fully automatic and 6 are double-lined fully automatic. These olive mills play an important role as supplier for the soap and detergent industries, as these consume most of the olive pulp which is generated from the milling process. All generated wastes are discarded on vacant lands or road sides. The rest of the olive residues (pulp) are either reused by people for heating, burned or discarded in nearby spaces.
According to the survey conducted by ARIJ, around forty-five percent of the industrial facilities in Nablus district are located in industrial areas, 28% are located in residential areas, and 27% are located in commercial areas. The quantities of solid waste generated from the industrial facilities surveyed by ARIJ (excluding quarries and stone-cutting facilities) are shown in table 9.3.
Table 9.3: Quantities of the generated industrial solid waste (ARIJ Survey, 1995 & Palestinian Directory for Industry, Commerce and Services, 1995).Industrial Facility No. of Factories Surveyed Total No. of Factories Solid Waste Tons/yr
Food & Beverage 40 45 5593
Fodder 7 7 137
Textile 6 9 71
"Plastic, Rubber & Shoes" 29 N/A 148
Chemicals 16 34 299
Metallic 36 45 206
Carton & Paper 2 3 214
Clothing 18 147 65
Paints 1 2 N/A
Construction 26 26 4406
Printing 6 10 214
Glass 1 2 120
Wood & Bamboo 10 26 3.8
"N/A: not available data, N: negligible." The generated solid waste is either produced during the production process or during packaging. Usually factories use carton, metal, plastic, and wood for packaging.
Based on the surveyed industrial facilities throughout Nablus district, the generated industrial solid waste is disposed of by different methods, as shown in table 9.4.
Table 9.4: The disposal methods of industrial waste in Nablus district (ARIJ Survey, 1995)Methods of Disposal Percentage of Disposal Method
Municipal waste containers 42
Reused 29
No waste 13
Road-sides dumping 9
On-site burning 2
official dump + reused 2
Reused + incinerated 3 Eighteen out of 31 Quarries and stone cutting facilities in Nablus district produce approximately 40,384 tons/yr of solid waste and approximately 13,486 tons/yr of solid waste mixed with a large amount of water. Forty-two percent of the solid waste is randomly dumped, negatively affecting both the human and the environment. The remaining 58% of the generated solid waste is reused as building material in constructions. Table 9.5 shows the amounts of solid waste and wastewater generated by quarries and, Figure 9.1 shows the location of quarries in Nablus district. Liquid wastes, either the slurry or sludge, are usually not treated before disposal. Moreover, some farmers believe that adding slurry to olive trees will improve the soil texture.
Large amounts of dust are released daily from several industrial facilities. Usually, all dust is emitted directly into the air, neglecting the harmful effect that may have on both human health and the environment.
Medical Waste
Most of the medical waste generated from health institutions in Nablus district ends up in the municipal garbage. Little of the generated medical waste is treated before disposal, thereby causing a threat to the human life.
Any proposed project to reduce the threat from medical waste must manage the waste safely from production to final destruction. This means, the surrounding environment should not be polluted and the risks of infection for the people taking part in handling and disposing hospital waste should be minimized.
Four hospitals and twenty-one laboratories were surveyed by ARIJ. Based on the survey results, approximately 42% of the medical centers are located in residential areas and 58% are located in commercial areas.
None of the surveyed medical centers had any adequate treatment system to get rid of the medical waste. Most of the waste is mixed with the municipal garbage in collection and disposal. For example, 64% of the surveyed medical facilities disposed of the blood samples directly into the garbage without any previous treatment, 12% of the facilities incinerate the blood samples, 16% sterilized blood by autoclaving, and 8% sterilized blood samples by adding chlorine or alcohol (chlorination method).
Transmission of pathogens to people is most likely to happen when handling sharp objects. Approximately 64% of all the surveyed medical centers dump their sharp objects without any proper treatment. This increases the risk of infection for the people who are collecting and handling the garbage.
Most of the medical centers use septic solutions for cleaning bed sheets. But, only a few of them isolate the sheets and the instruments used by patients with infectious diseases from the rest.
All the surgery wastes from the hospitals are held in plastic bags and disposed of in the domestic garbage bins. Most of the lab technicians in hospitals, clinics and laboratories do not use safety tools such as gloves or masks.
During the 28 years of Israeli occupation, the Health Department did not perform any periodical inspection for the medical and health centers. For example, approximately 52% of the medical centers had never been subjected to any kind of inspection.
Recently, the Palestinian Ministry of Health took over the health issues and started to conduct a periodical inspection to all medical centers in the West Bank.
Recommendation
- The collection system needs to be upgraded to eliminate random dumping of wastes.
- A modern sanitary landfill should be constructed for Nablus district, taking into account environmental impacts on the site and leachate monitoring and control.
- A composting program should be established to use the large percentage of organic matter.
- Waste materials should be reused and recycled to the largest degree possible.
- Medical waste and industrial hazardous waste should be properly controlled to protect human heath and the environment.
- Public awareness about proper solid waste management should be increased.
