Abdul Rahman al-Tomaizy, a Palestinian entrepreneur from Idhna in the southern West Bank, has opened the region’s first-ever factory specialising in extracting useful materials from the e-waste in an area known for its contamination.
In the past, the town was once associated with fertile land and rich agriculture.
It was packed with olive and fig trees, and the Palestinian residents grew and harvested grapes, squash, tomatoes and cucumbers.
Graveyard of E-Waste
Today, however, it is thought of as a massive e-waste graveyard. 200 to 500 tonnes of garbage flow here every day. They include discarded TV sets, refrigerators, mobile phones and other appliances that arrive to the town on trucks. Sixty percent of the garbage comes from nearby Israeli settlements. The remaining 40% arrives from other cities and towns throughout the West Bank.
Traditionally, the residents of the town, who have become dependent on the e-waste sector, have burnt that garbage to extract useful materials from it, which range from nickel and copper to iron, aluminium and lead.
Right now, there are 55 workshops that specialise in this crude process of extraction. All are scattered around Idhna, and each of those facilities employs between 12 to 38 people.
Looking for Solutions
But al-Tomaizy says the sector, which employs some 2,500 families, has brought more damage than benefits.
"Hundreds of tonnes have been burnt in the area, and that means that entire hectares of land have become unfit for cultivation. The burning of e-waste has also had a negative impact on public health, with many residents now suffering from lung and eye diseases caused by hazardous fume inhalation," he added.
The contamination of Idhna, coupled with severe health problems, has prompted the entrepreneur to look for solutions, and this is how he came up with the idea of establishing the first-ever factory to extract useful materials from the town's e-waste without burning it.
He has approached the United Nations and asked for its help, and the international body invested thousands of dollars into the establishment of a facility which uses a special machine to extract useful materials from e-waste.
Once those are extracted, they are sold to factories that recycle them and the money received is used to pay the salaries of the facility's staff.
Al-Tomaizy says the project has already been welcomed by the residents of Idhna, especially farmers, who see it as an important step in the direction of saving the area from the dangerous waste and the pollution it causes.
But he also feels that there are still a number of challenges that hamper progress in transforming the town into an eco-friendly one.
"First of all, the Israelis and the Palestinians keep throwing their e-waste in the area without thinking about the repercussions it has on health and the environment. And, secondly, I only have one machine that can recycle one tonne a day. To be able to tackle more, I need to purchase more machinery, which is currently not an option."
Those challenges, says al-Tomaizy, do not scare him and he admits that he still dreams big, striving to expand his initiative to other parts of the West Bank that have been suffering from the same pollution problems.
"One step at a time. I want to clean Idhna first and then move onwards and create similar factories across the region."