Copyright: John-Michael Davis
Palestinians want the e-waste industry to be regulated, as it has become a primary source of income, despite its toxic hazards.
CBC News reports on the state of the Palestinian e-waste industry and how a Canadian PhD student is developing ways of cleaning up toxic e-waste sites while at the same time ensuring local people can still make a living.
John-Michael Davis, a Memorial University PhD student, has “spent more than five years travelling to the Palestinian territories as part of his research”. Together, he and a fellow researcher from Israel’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Yaakov Garb, are the brains behind “an innovative project that has achieved consensus between Israelis and Palestinians to clean up an environmental mess that affects both sides of the border.”
Currently, Palestinians are seeking regulation of the e-waste industry because, according to Davis, “they recognise it as their primary source of income”, but Davis and Garb, who are “the first researchers to study burn contamination” are seeking a healthier solution to the e-waste issue.
As it stands, large amounts of e-waste “including air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, computers and other discarded household appliances” are being transported from Israel to Palestine on a daily basis and it is being left “at about 700 sites in the West Bank.” Davis revealed that “Palestinians are bringing it in as part of an informal economy” and it is estimated that between 70 and 80% of households in villages in southwest Hebron “rely on e-waste recycling for at least part of their income”.
However, as their main method of extracting copper and other metals, or getting rid of value-less foams and plastics, is by burning, this method of earning a livelihood has toxic side effects. Davis explained that local farmers can tell where goats have been raised from the colour of their livers, parents are “seeing increased cases of leukaemia and miscarriages” and “chicken farmers complain their eggs no longer have yolks”.
Davis’ research partner, Garb, revealed that “the e-waste contains persistent organic pollutants, such as dioxins, furons and flame retardants, which can be picked up in animal meat and milk, as well as in the water table.”
The pair have “managed to procure” $3 million for their research project from the Swedish International Development Agency, which promotes development in the Palestinian Territories. Now the “first part of their project is to clean up the waste in the 70 most heavily polluted burn sites and ship the contaminated waste to a treatment facility in Israel.” They also want to “develop better methods of extracting the recyclable materials.”
Garb estimates that the project “has already cut the amount of burning by 40 per cent” and the response to the project among the local villagers has been “overwhelmingly positive”. He also revealed that the participation of Davis “was essential in getting to this point” as “The Canadian presence is seen as a neutral, fair broker in the area”.