Through strategic partnerships, Jerash municipality in Jordan was able to overcome impediments in solid waste management and embark on a path of circularity. By partnering with multiple stakeholders, the municipality succeeded in designing strategies for effective solid waste management and overcoming challenges related to insufficient operating budget, low collection coverage, waste dumping, and the associated environmental and public health concerns.
Jerash municipality in northern Jordan, is located 48 kilometers north of the capital Amman. Home to more than 160,000 inhabitants, the municipality has a vision for a green, sustainable and healthy city. Nevertheless, ineffective solid waste management was hindering progress towards this vision. In September 2020, the municipality launched a project targeting a delimited area that hosts the majority of businesses and commercial activities, with an aim to prompt collection of plastics, papers, cardboards, glass and metals for recycling purposes.
The municipality aimed at collecting recyclables, sorting at source and adjusting the citizen’s consumer behavior to progress towards circularity. Due to the large scale of the mission, the process is planned to be implemented in several stages. By deploying strategic partnerships with NGOs and private sector, the municipality has successfully mainstreamed waste sorting and recycling.
Within the framework of the first phase of the transformation process, the following activities were conducted:
The success of this project is a result of several factors, which are:
The sustainability of the project is critical since growth is required to accommodate the pressing needs to adjust waste management in the municipality. To ensure future development, a project proposal was developed with Connective Cities under the title Plastijerash. The project proposed by Jerash municipality and their partner social enterprise ‘Plasticity’ aims at increasing community engagement and awareness raising on recycling plastic. Other objectives of the proposed project include job creation andusing plastic waste for urban furniture. Along with another project that was developed by Jerash Connective Cities on improving energy efficiency in waste collection, this project also contributes to climate protection and reduction of GHG emissions.
Published: 13/07/2022