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by Kaouthar Oudrhiri Agence France-Presse MEKNES, Morocco (AFP) – Recycling in Morocco may be in its infancy, but the North African kingdom is making steady progress, helped by a Swiss firm that specialises in processing organic waste. “Nothing’s thrown away here: everything is transformed,” says Mohamed El Kabous proudly, crumbling a fistful of compost produced by Elephant Vert (EV — Green Elephant) in the central city of Meknes. Established in 2012 as EV’s largest such […]
by Anne CHAON Agence France-Presse ISTANBUL, Turkey (AFP) – Shrouded by acrid smoke, a young Afghan crouches sorting waste he has pulled from the trash bins of Istanbul, anxious that Turkey will soon strip him of even this subsistence. “I start at eight in the morning and finish at eight at night,” said Issam Raffur, who has spent four of his 20 years in Turkey. “It is very hard and poorly paid, but I have […]
by Issam AHMED WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The United States is by far the biggest contributor to global plastic waste in the world, according to a new report submitted to the federal government Wednesday that called for a national strategy to tackle the growing crisis. Overall, the US contributed around 42 million metric tons (MMT) in plastic waste in 2016 — more than twice as much as China and more than the countries of […]
by Carolyn Lamboley Agence France-Presse SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates (AFP) – With rubbish piling up in the desert, the United Arab Emirates has found a new way to get rid of its trash — incinerators that will turn it into electricity. The UAE, one of the world’s top oil exporters, is building the Gulf region’s first waste-to-power plants to ease its chronic trash problem and, at the same time, its reliance on gas-fuelled electricity stations. Green […]
by Agnes ANYA JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Alarmed by the mountains of plastic waste leaching into Indonesia’s waters, two best friends are taking on the environmental menace by turning crisp bags and shampoo packets into paving bricks. Ovy Sabrina and Novita Tan launched Rebricks after their country drew headlines as the second-biggest producer of marine waste in the world, behind China. Indonesia has pledged to reduce plastic waste by some 75 percent over the next […]
by Adam PLOWRIGHT Agence France-Presse WITTELSHEIM, France (AFP) — Jean-Pierre Hecht, a miner in eastern France, remembers how attractive the idea sounded when he first heard about it: a dying pit could be turned into something useful and environmentally friendly. Back in the 1990s, the local state mining group MDPA approached the community in the town of Wittelsheim in Alsace with an idea for stocking hazardous waste in a nearby potash mine. “The pitch was […]
(Eagle News)–Authorities have intercepted two containers of illegally imported waste coming from the United States, the Bureau of Customs said. In a statement, the bureau said the containers which were consigned to Bataan 2020 Inc. were among the 30 containers issued an alert order, and declared as American Old Corrugated Cartons for Repulping. The bureau said the two containers were intercepted as they exited the Subic Bay International Terminal Corp. on Oct. 21. The operation […]
by Géza Molnar / Balazs Wizner Agence France-Presse ZÁHONY, Hungary (AFP) — The 150-odd competitors meeting on the banks of Hungary’s second largest river carried somewhat unusual equipment for a boat race — protective gloves, rubber boots and large bags. Their challenge was to collect as much rubbish as possible from the Tisza, in the northeast of the country on the Ukrainian border, navigating it on rafts, built themselves from trash, for nine days. “Every […]
COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AFP) — About 160 sea turtles, many of them injured after getting entangled in plastic waste, have been rescued after washing up on one of the world’s longest beaches in Bangladesh, an official and conservationists said Wednesday. The Olive Ridley turtles began floating to shore at Cox’s Bazar with a huge mass of plastic bottles, fishing nets, buoys and other debris at the weekend. Survivors were released back into the Bay of […]
by Alexandra Vardi TEL AVIV, Israel (AFP) — Israeli scientists have come up with a “simple” and low-cost method to turn waste into ethanol for use as sanitisers in the battle against the novel coronavirus. Professor Hadas Mamane of Tel Aviv University (TAU) and her team have been working for the past five years on recycling waste and transforming it into alcohol. Now, in response to the global demand for hand sanitisers, they have focused […]
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AFP) — Dhaka is awash with millions of plastic-laminated campaign posters ahead of elections in the Bangladeshi capital, and environmentalists are up in arms. These posters — of which there are an estimated 304 million — will likely end up in sewers, rivers and canals, says activist Sharif Jamil. “If they are burnt, they will pollute the air,” he adds. The city’s air quality has been ranked one of the worst in the […]
BUTTERWORTH, Malaysia (AFP) — Malaysia has sent back 150 shipping containers of plastic waste to mostly wealthier nations, with the Southeast Asian country saying Monday it would not be the world’s “garbage dump”. The region has been flooded with plastic from more developed economies such as the United States and Britain since 2018 after China — which previously boasted a massive recycling industry — ordered a halt to most imports. Many Chinese recycling businesses moved […]
