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Municipal Solid Waste Management at Amman City

Eng. Hala Mohammad Al Nobani
Greater Amman Municipality
Under Secretary for Health and Environment Affairs Assistant office.
Tel: + (962) 7 9555 63 84 / + (962) 7 9614 98 01
P.O.Box 925353 - 11119
Amman, Jordan.
E-mail: halanobani[at]yahoo.com
 

The current management plan consists of the following processes:

1. Sweeping and cleaning (pre – collection): This process carried out by workers through streets sweeping and pre – collection, where the produced wastes are collected and dumped in the containers to be ready for the collection vehicles. Workers and supervisors are distributed over the 27 districts of the city as well the transfer stations and the landfill. The distribution over the district depends on the area, population, and activities upon the district. Sweeping workers and supervisors are working for 3 shifts per day.

2. Waste collection: carried out by many types of collection vehicles with different capacities These vehicles are mainly consisting of rotaries compactors and hoists. Hoists are responsible for collecting the wastes that produced by large commercial centers and markets, while the small compactors of 2 ton capacity are mainly dealing with the narrow and small roads. Trucks and loaders are also involved in waste collection and cleanliness of special places such as parks, space lands and also for dealing with bulky wastes. The collection vehicles collect the waste through a well – defined routing system.

3. Waste transferring: Three transfer stations of different capacities are used for waste transferring. Wastes are transported to these stations by various collection vehicles. These stations are allocated at the east part of the city. A new transfer station at the west part of the city will be constructed soon.

4. Landfilling: Wastes are collected and transported to Ghabawi sanitary landfill, which is located at the eastern border of Amman City (37 Km) far from the city center. The landfill site has been selected within the highest international and WHO standards.

General description for the landfill:

The site is 2000 donoms area, owned by Amman Municipality. The average prevailing wind direction is west (south-west, north-west). This helps the transfer of possible gases and smells away from the population gathering west. The nearest population to the east is Azraq city which is located 60 km from the site. It is located about 23 km east of Amman ring road, through the site selection process (1999 – 2000) the location and the surrounding areas were owned by the Jordanian military, without any residential, historical or cultural land use, the nearest residential area is sited to 8 km at the west of the location. The area also was out of Amman municipality border. In 2000 the site has been confirmed by a governmental committee that represents all the governmental bodies and ministries, as well the stakeholders including the local community. Amman municipality expanded its administrative border at 2001 to be able to control the land use in the area. Thus, an extra 1000 donoms at the west of Ghabawi site (at the western border) have been owned by the municipality, to control the land use and to save enough land space for investment in solid waste management. The site is located in the semi arid zone with low annual rainfall (100 – 200 mm), and high evaporation percentage (more than 90 %).

Cost recovery mechanism

There is a cost recovery mechanism established through which municipalities cover part of the direct operating costs of collection and disposal. Other general revenues cover the rest. This mechanism involves the waste collection fee being included as an item on the monthly electricity bill. This has been achieved by agreement between the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and the Electric Power Distributing Companies. The charge is levied per household. The solid waste fee constitutes about 6% of average monthly electricity bill. This approach to fee collection has been successful securing high collection rates.
Commercial / industrial establishments are charged 20% percent of trade license fees.
Regarding disposal, there is a disposal tipping fee paid by the municipalities and waste generators who bring their own solid waste to landfills for disposal. The fee is applied per ton of waste.

Solid waste management is a growing concern in Jordan.

The level of municipal solid wastes (MSW) generated in Jordan is relatively high at 0.9 kg per capita per day (average).

MSW in Jordan includes a mix of domestic garbage, plastic, glass, metals in addition to hazardous and non-hazardous medical solid wastes. In general terms, MSW in Jordan is characterized by a high organic content, with combustible matter (consisting of paper, and kitchen garbage).

• In some societies, solid waste is no longer considered unwanted product of our daily life activities But it is considered a raw material in wrong place which could be of essential need for other activities whether for the same generators or others within the solid waste generated communities or outside of such communities

• By far the majority of waste (more than 90%) is managed through land disposal. Recycling is very limited and undertaken by the informal sector (private individuals, scavengers). Much of the recycling is done at the recycling sites. These operations are not regulated and expose workers to hazardous conditions. Sorting of the different types of solid waste at generation sources is not yet practiced in Jordan, so considerable amounts of recyclable materials are sent to final disposal sites. Some recycling initiatives and pilot projects undertaken by NGOs were very successful, as the public was very positive but were terminated. Recycling covers paper, cardboards, metal and plastic products.

Recycling Projects

• Ministry of Environment and GAM are now in the planning phase for a joint venture recycling project.

• The main objective for this project is to introduce to the Jordanian people the separation at source practice.

• The project will work on the following pivots:

Awareness campaign which is going to be held by the Jordan Environment Society. (one of the most active NGOs in manipulating recycling projects since 1995)

Preparing the infrastructure for the project. This will be funded by the MoEnv.

Managing the project after implementation is going to be GAM's responsibility but under the super vision of the MoEnv.

• Alike project but in smaller scale will be held in Irbid city

• Two MRFs are going to be structured in a capacity of 100 – 200 ton daily for each. These MRFs are going to be located in Al Shaa'er transfer station in Amman, and the other one will be in Ekeder landfill in Irbid Municipality

• The implementation of the project is expected to be on 2008 budget


Supporting NGOs

Since 1995 GAM is supporting Jordan Environment Society (JES) in implementing the pilot recycling project, by sending specialized employees to help in the survey and the awareness campaign and also in depleting workers and vehicles to collect and separate the recyclables

Supporting private sector

In 2005 The Mayor had signed an agreement with Al Tadweer Company. Under this agreement GAM allocated 35 dunoms near Al Ghabawi land fill to build a dirty MRF with a capacity of 600 ton daily. In 2008 the MRF is expected to start working

Selling Gas from the Sanitary landfill

Through the World Bank and under the umbrella of Kyoto protocols our counselors are preparing to sell the gas generated from the first cell and convert it into electricity.

Biogas plant

• Using the funds from the UNDP the plant was established by the Biogas Jordan Company (owned by GAM) and the electric generation company at a capacity of 60 ton daily of organic waste and poultry waste and diary factory wastes.

• Twelve wells were duct in the closed dump site in Al Rusaifa in order to collect the generated gases from the waste

• Now the biogas plant is generating around 3.5 Megawatt

Jordanian Executive Privatization Commission

GAM has requested a feasibility study of potential for PPP in recycling from the EPC. The study helped GAM in finding answers for the following questions.
How much waste is recyclable?
How much recyclable material can be recovered (the dry recyclables)?
How can dry recyclables be collected?
How are they recovered?
Is there a local market for the recovered dry recyclables?

The amount of recyclables

41% organic materials
13% paper and boards
2% metals
14% plastics
2% glass
28% other

The study suggests that we can increase the recovered recyclables to 30% in 10 years
 

Application for Participation (PDF)