Entrepreneurs fight pile-up of garbage in the West Bank

7 hours ago 1

Israeli restrictions on movement in the West Bank are impeding garbage trucks from reaching landfills, leaving Palestinians living amid mounds of trash. Two Palestinian entrepreneurs are trying to change this.

EMILY FENG, HOST:

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinians are not allowed to move freely. They are subject to checkpoints and random gate closures around towns, which forces them to wait for hours and take long, circuitous routes. This exacerbates many other problems, like garbage disposal. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley met two young entrepreneurs trying to do something about it.

(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINES RUNNING)

ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: In a dimly lit cement block warehouse near the West Bank Palestinian city of Ramallah, a line of machines is humming away. A conveyor belt brings plastic trash up to one machine where it is shredded, washed and dried, then fed into another contraption that melts the waste and spits it back out as plastic pellets.

IBRAHIM GHAZAL: From waste plastic into a raw material again.

BEARDSLEY: From waste plastic to raw material again, says mechanical engineer Ibrahim Ghazal, one of the cofounders of this new startup operation called Scrapcycle Solutions.

(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS ON METAL STAIRS)

BEARDSLEY: We walk up some metal steps to a small office built on the roof of the facility. Ghazal's business partner and boyhood schoolmate, Faris Abu Keshek, says they got their idea after the Gaza war started 2 1/2 years ago, and the situation got a lot worse.

FARIS ABU KESHEK: The difficulty that we are facing after October 7, after the war and after the checkpoints that happens and the borders that they did.

BEARDSLEY: The tightened restrictions and proliferating checkpoints have left Palestinians living among waste, with the garbage uncollected or piling up at places where it sat temporarily before. Abu Keshek shows me Ramallah's main garbage transfer station, which used to be cleared every day. Now a massive mound of garbage has collected. It teems with birds and stray dogs.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOG BARKING)

ABU KESHEK: Behind me, you can see a transfer station where all the waste is piled up.

(SOUNDBITE OF VEHICLE PASSING BY)

FIRAS FARSAKH: And more than 700, maybe, tons of waste is at this transfer station at the moment.

BEARDSLEY: This transfer station recently caught fire, smoldering for a week and releasing toxic fumes into the air. To get to the landfills, trucks loaded with garbage have to cross Israeli checkpoints - a long and sometimes dangerous process. Ghazal says the drivers face threats as they wait.

GHAZAL: They spend hours on the checkpoints. Other than the settlers attacking, sometimes, the truck drivers, it's very difficult to transfer the waste here.

BEARDSLEY: The West Bank has two landfills in the north and south. The Palestinian Authority has appealed to open a third in the center, which Israel has repeatedly refused. Ghazal believes it's on purpose.

GHAZAL: They want the people to feel the pressure. They don't want us to just have a thought that we can live comfortably. They want us to know that we can control wherever you go. We can control where your garbage goes. We control every aspect of your life.

BEARDSLEY: In a statement, the Israeli military told NPR it is advancing on a construction permit for a third landfill in Judea and Samaria, using the biblical name for the West Bank.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOORBELL CHIMING)

BEARDSLEY: We visit the Ramallah office of the Japan International Cooperation Agency, Japan's equivalent of USAID. Director Firas Farsakh sees the difficulties Palestinians face living under Israeli military occupation.

FARSAKH: So garbage is not just garbage. I mean, it reflects all of the political situation, you know, on the ground. It shows you how difficult it is to accomplish anything in this challenging area.

BEARDSLEY: Abu Keshek and Ghazal, the two entrepreneurs trying to alleviate garbage problems with their recycling startup, approached the Japanese and other NGOs for help. They just want the West Bank to have what most other countries have. Abu Keshek visited a recycling plant in Israel.

ABU KESHEK: When I went to that facility inside and saw how they operate and how it's done and how it's supposed to be done, I was astonished. I even called Ibrahim at that exact moment, as soon as I entered. I told him, I can't believe what I'm seeing. You can see many parts of tons of compressed plastic in one place. Cardboard's in one place. They have the metals in one place.

BEARDSLEY: But with all the restrictions on the West Bank, they knew they had to start small. So they began with plastics, which make up 16% of garbage. They have managed to get some help from one outside quarter.

ARTHUR DONG: My name is Arthur Dong, and I'm a professor at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business.

BEARDSLEY: Dong's master's class worked on the feasibility study for the startup. He says the project is meaningful and viable with proper funding.

DONG: Obviously, you know, cross currents of politics involved here because of Israeli occupation that is in desperate need to address this long-term problem of how to dispose of waste.

BEARDSLEY: Back at the recycling facility, Abu Keshek and Ghazal say there are 72 manufacturers in the West Bank that can use their plastic pellets, so they're not giving up despite the obstacles faced by West Bank entrepreneurs.

ABU KESHEK: This is the challenge to us. This is what makes us work harder.

GHAZAL: We don't quit (laughter), no. We have to fight what's going around us. We have to be patient. We have to be ambitious, and we can't just stop.

BEARDSLEY: We have to succeed, they say, for us and for the Palestinian people. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

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