Gaza’s landfills threaten citizens' health
Amid a lack of an advanced system to sort out hazardous household waste, experts deem Gaza’s current waste disposal operations unhealthy, causing a serious threat to public health.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The waste landfill is located less than 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles) away from the house of taxi driver Mohammed Abu Issa, who lives in the agricultural village of Hajar al-Deek in the east of Bureij in the central Gaza Strip.
Abu Issa, 40, often sees young boys and farmers heading to the solid and organic wastewater basin next to the landfill to collect some of this wastewater to use in spraying crops.
“I also hear farmers saying that they put this wastewater on their crops," he told Al-Monitor. "They send some boys to bring these quantities so as not to raise suspicions. However, sometimes they go there themselves, once every week or 10 days. They say this wastewater helps ripen crops quickly.”
These practices are the result of solid waste disposal in Gaza, as the amount of daily waste per capita increases year after year.
