AMMAN - The Ministry of Environment and the Greater Amman Municipality plan to formulate an integrated strategy for collecting and segregating solid waste, Minister of Environment Khalid Irani said on Wednesday.
"Once the strategy is finalised, a tender will be floated to hire a company that will be responsible for collecting and segregating solid waste, by placing bins for paper, plastic and metal waste in different neighbourhoods and institutions," Irani said.
White and coloured paper, newspapers and magazines fall under the first category, plastic water and soda bottles and nylon and plastic bags under the second, while metals comprise soda cans, aluminium, copper, iron and glass, in addition to household waste, according to a ministry statement.
"Sorting solid waste is an advanced method of treating garbage, which will preserve the country's natural resources, provide job opportunities, prolong the capacity of landfills and utilise garbage in a healthy way by recycling it," Irani said.
In an attempt to ensure positive response to the initiative, the Environment Ministry, in cooperation with the Jordan Environment Society (JES), on Wednesday announced the launch of an awareness campaign to familiarise the public with ways to deal with the different types of garbage and how to sort them for recycling purposes.
"The campaign seeks to encourage people to sort garbage in separate bins in order to ensure the success of the recycling project, as the sorting process minimises its negative impact on the environment," the minister said.
Nancy Khairi, technical assistant of the recycling project at JES, said among the ministry's first measures to encourage people to sort garbage will be to distribute bins of metal, plastic and paper in different neighbourhoods in Amman.
"Thousands of brochures and posters have been prepared and will be distributed to Amman residents, students and employees in different institutions to ensure everyone has access to the information," Khairi told The Jordan Times yesterday.
The campaign is one of the society's several efforts over the past years seeking to introduce the concept of recycling to the Kingdom.
In 1994, JES started a recycling project by installing a paper bin at a school in Shmeisani.
From there, the pilot project grew and now encompasses more than 300 institutions in Amman.
The society now has cars and full-time employees for collecting garbage, which is sent to a small plant in Tareq for sorting and recycling.
With 30 tonnes of waste paper collected monthly, the society sells the recycled paper to factories in Zarqa at JD15-JD25 per tonne.
The project's revenues are used for seminars and workshops to educate students on the importance of recycling and conservation.
By Hana Namrouqa
© Jordan Times 2007
