RAMALLAH, Tuesday, June 6, 2023 (WAFA) – Marking World Environment Day, which is celebrated annually on the 5th of June since 1972, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) and the Environment Quality Authority (EQA) said that according to the data of the Ministry of Local Government for 2022, the generated municipal solid waste in Palestine was 1.7 million tons/year (1.1 million tons/year in the West Bank and 0.6 million tons/day in the Gaza Strip).
The per capita generation rate is 1kg/day, which varies from 0.93-2.78 kg/day in urban regions and from 0.73 to 1.14 kg/day in rural regions, while the daily waste generation average per capita in refugee camps reaches around 0.72 kg/day.
The PCBS and EQA said in their joint press release that Palestine has developed a national strategy for solid waste management, which includes a set of interventions aimed at sound environmental management regarding plastic waste, in addition to the provisions and articles of Law No. 7 of 1999 regarding the environment, which regulates a set of special provisions aimed at reducing the production of solid waste, in particular Article (8) and Article (23) of the Law, which prohibit dumping, burning or disposing of solid waste except in designated places.
Plastic, which is this year’s theme of World Environment Day under the title “Beat Plastic Pollution”, is considered one of the most important components of solid waste in Palestine; it formed about 16.4% of the total solid waste in the West Bank and about 14.0% of the total solid waste in Gaza Strip.
On the other hand, Palestine suffers from the absence of any Joint Services Council for Solid Waste Management (JSC) that would practice recycling within its own capabilities, except for the treatments that are ongoing by private operators in most cases like in Jericho and Jerusalem Governorates.
The percentage of treated hazardous waste was 7% of the total generated waste in 2022, and it is expected to reach 10% by 2023.
The plastics industry is one of the largest manufacturers in the Palestinian economy. Data from economic surveys, 2019 showed that there are 243 working plastic establishments in Palestine in the private and non-governmental sectors, in addition to that there are 3,486 employed in this field, while the total added value of the plastic industries sector amounted to about $64 million in 2019.
Data showed that the total imports of raw plastic reached $327 million in 2021 compared to $216 million in 2015.
The State of Palestine suffers from the excessive use of plastic materials and products, which is considered a difficult challenge to the environment in Palestine, in addition to the environmental crimes of the Israeli occupation at all levels, with the aim of destroying the Palestinian environment and making it unlivable, especially with regard to the smuggling of waste and hazardous materials, including plastic waste.
Hence, data from the Environment Quality Authority indicate that in 2022, there were 37 cases of smuggling of solid, liquid and hazardous waste that was seized, represented by trucks carrying solid waste coming from Israeli areas, tanks for draining liquid waste, in addition to chemical waste, used car tires, plastic and other dangerous waste, where the Palestinian side returned the seized smuggled waste to the Israeli side.
These smuggling operations were concentrated in Qalqilya Governorate with nine cases, and six cases in Ramallah and Tulkarm. While the rest of the cases were distributed among the rest of the governorates.
The reality necessitates that the initiative should be taken to reduce plastic waste production and use alternative materials, and not burn or dispose of them as well in the designated places, as plastic materials have become a severe impact on the environment, in addition to their contribution to climate change, which results in environmental and health damages, said the joint press release.
Worldwide, more than 400 million tons of plastic are produced yearly, half of which is designed to be used only once. Also, less than 10% of this plastic material is recycled; however, about 19-23 million tons end up in lakes, rivers and seas, which prompted the UN to confront plastic pollution in the world in its fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly, held in Nairobi in 2022, which adopted a historic resolution to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution by 2024.
M.K.
