Kick-off Workshop
A kick off meeting has been conducted with Ain Al Basha municipality and the department of Palestinian affairs in order to introduce the project, understand the existing management situation of solid waste in the region, and to brainstorm on challenges and situations to improve the service provision of waste service chain within Baqaa and Ain Al Basha region.
Ain al Basha municipality is managing and coordinating the municipal services within the district. The district itself is considered a critical point which is the gate of Amman from the north. That puts a huge pressure on the municipality to keep track on all services to ensure serviceability. The solid waste of the region is considered a challenge to the municipality due to different reasons. The first one, is lack of garbage trucks which causes delays in the service especially in the peak seasons. Moreover, the trucks convey the solid waste to a very long distance that is considered rough with steep slopes. This causes damages to the trucks and poses high maintenance costs on the municipality. The municipality suggest if there is a nearby collection and transfer station to the district which will reduce the distance on the trucks and in result reduce the operation and maintenance costs. Moreover, due to the commercial activities in the region and especially in Baqaa refugee camp, ideas for income generation from solid waste are motivated and encouraged in the region.
The existing landfill require renovation and redesign as it depends currently on compacting the solid waste into layers inside the soil layers. The waste flow to the landfill is huge as it receives waste from Al Salt governorate and Ain Al Basha district. The plans and documents of the landfill projects are developed, however the lack of funding is the issue.
The Baqaa refugee camp is managed by three organizations, the first one is Department of Palestinian Affairs (دائرة الشؤون الفلسطينية) which is a governmental organization that represents the Jordanian government in the camp. The second organization is United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA( (وكالة الغوث الدولية), and the third organization is the Services Committee (لجنة الخدمات). The Department of Palestinian Affairs is responsible for managing the camp, coordinating the communication between UNRWA and governmental entities, and providing construction works permissions and supervision for any construction activities within the camp, and giving penalties for illegal activities.
Regarding UNRWA they are responsible for three services within the camp. The first one is health, they have two medical centres, the second one is education where there is 12 schools in the camp, and the their service is the environmental services which include solid waste management. Moreover, UNRWA pays for Baqaa land rantings to the landowners.
The main challenges for solid waste management in Baqaa is firstly the population growth. The number of refugees is 125,000 refugee in addition to the displaced Palestinians and people from Gaza which sum up to reach more than 190,000 capita.
The refugee environment is harsh. The average family size per house used to be around 5 and now it reduced to 4 due to socioeconomic situations. Area of the camp is 1.49 km2 which is 1490 donum which contained 11,500 household unit in the beginning. Currently the camp units has been tripled. The expansion in the camp is vertical due to the lack of space. The compactness of Al Baqaa camp is very high were houses are very close to each other on an average 0.5 m distance.
This high population and densification of house units is putting a pressure on the municipal services inside the camp and including the solid waste management. The funding and budget for services to the department of Palestinian affairs have been reduced which affected the level of service and the human power which is required to do the job efficiently. The second issue is the people have a systemic life style where each household is responsible to clean his surroundings. In addition, littering is a noticeable issue where people through the garbage on streets. the department of Palestinian affairs have only 80 active cleaners for the whole camp working from 7:00 AM to 12:00 PM. They barley can clean the waste on doors, but they cannot clean the streets.
Before, people used to clean the surrounding streets to keep the neighbourhood clean, however currently people care only about the interior houses. Any human can change his/her behaviour if they got aware.
Due to the accumulation of garbage and lack of proper cleaning, rodents, insects and mosquitoes are spreading which causes diseases and health concerns. Those insects and mosquitoes transmit diseases to the nearby vegetables and fruit market where most if edible products are exposed outside to the customers without any kind of protection. Moreover, the accumulation of garbage is most of the times clogging the wastewater network throughout the manholes, and the drainage system through the culverts.
Each cleaner assigned a territory within the camp. The garbage trucks are a private company that has a contract with UNRWA. If a delayed occur in the process due to any reason such as a construction site or a someone who is parking on the entrance, an environmental pollution could occur. Moreover, people start complaining that they don’t want the collection sites to be near their houses due to the smell and fear of diseases. In the meantime, it is very hard to move the collection sites as it should be inside the camp and between the houses to serve them.
There is an issue with refugees that they don’t know who is responsible for what. This put a pressure on the department that they receive all complains and they need to coordinate communications for other actors in the camp. However, there is cooperation and joint efforts between the three actors in the camp. For solid waste complains, it is the responsibility of UNRWA to solve the issues and the department of Palestinian affairs monitor the response.
The services committee are the representative of refugees in the camp. This committee is assigned not elected as it is not politically correct to let refugees in an emergency camp elect. The committee members are not selected based on geographical coverage; therefore, refugees lack real representation in the committee. There are environmental monitors who observe and track any environmental issues out of the solid waste in the camp and they report it to the department. If there is a conflict due to solid waste which requires the action from the district director, the department of Palestinian affairs are responsible for do the correspondences. The camp site supervision and assessment is managed by three engineers only.
Despite this tough situation and all mentioned challenges, success stories have been generated from this camp where many people took a leading role in Jordan in all aspects.
A site visit has been conducted to some collection sites and to some neighbourhoods to capture the issue and understand the solid waste management process within the camp.