Environmental friendly building stones from "waste ash" in Gaza

Raed Musa - Gaza

Dr. Hossam Al-Aqra has achieved part of his dream, with his success in recycling waste and producing environmentally friendly building stones, but his biggest dream is to use tons of waste in the Gaza Strip to solve the worsening power outage crisis for many years, and produce distilled water suitable for drinking to overcome the problem of water salinity.

This dream continued to haunt Al-Aqra (46 years), who finished his graduate studies in materials engineering from France of his nationality, and his supreme goal is to help solve the crises of the small and besieged coastal sector for 13 years.

After years spent by Al-Aqra in France - during which he worked in the French Ministry of Scientific Research between 2006 and 2012, during which he gained great experience in the field of waste recycling - he returned to Gaza and all hoped to transfer the experiment, but he collided with the weak capabilities.

Environment friendly stones
Al-Aqra, who still lives in his childhood home in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, has not succumbed to the difficult reality caused by the Israeli siege and internal division.

Besides working as a lecturer in local universities, his first qualitative project at the sector level started with the production of "waste ash stones".

On the production mechanism, Al-Aqra told Al-Jazeera Net that he used the ash from burning household and factory waste combustion, and mixed it in certain proportions with basic building materials.

The Al-Aqra project contributes to utilizing the accumulated tons of waste, which failure to dispose of in a proper manner leads to the spread of epidemics and diseases.

Because of his financial inability to open his own factory, Al-Aqra 'resorted to agreeing with a factory for the production of building stones in the town of Beit Hanoun, north of the sector, and said that opening a factory for the production of waste ash stones cost about fifty thousand dollars.

Al-Aqra does not aim to achieve substantial financial profit from its project, as it is keen to spread the culture of waste and waste recycling and benefit from it in several production processes.

Al-Aqraa explained that a ton of ash from waste produces about two hundred to 250 stones, after mixing it with basic building materials, and one stone is sold for 2.8 shekels (one dollar equals 3.5 shekels), while the price of an ordinary stone is 2.5 shekels.

Features of new stones
Al-Aqra showed that the stones it produces are distinguished - along with their rigidity, quality and light weight - that they reduce heat emissions and keep heating homes in the winter, which is witnessing increased pressure on loads, which contributes to a decrease in dependence on electricity for the heating process.

He said that the demand for the use of these stones continues to increase, but what is produced up to the moment does not meet all the needs of the sector for several reasons, the most important of which is that this culture is not prevalent, and the lack of sufficient quantities of waste that is often forced to buy at a price of two hundred shekels per ton The one, to meet customers' orders.

Al-Aqra 'is looking forward to contributing to the spread of a culture of dependence on waste recycling products, as in many European countries that depend on proper planning for the disposal of waste, by recycling it and investing it in all its forms, whether organic or inorganic.

There are three main landfills in the Gaza Strip, in addition to an unlimited number of random landfills. According to an official report issued by the Palestinian Statistics Center last year, homes in Gaza leave about 716 tons of waste per day.

Al Aqraa said that about 80% of household and factory waste is organic and can be completely burned and utilized to produce environmentally friendly stones, instead of disposing of them in improper ways that harm humans and the environment.

The biggest dream
Al-Aqraa affirmed that these quantities of waste can be used through burning operations in special ovens to solve the two biggest crises the sector suffers from, namely power outages and water salinity, as well as the production of stones and other things, thus providing thousands of jobs.

Al-Aqra 'pointed out that the establishment of such a project needs financing estimated at five hundred million dollars, but the most important thing is that it provides international guarantees that it will not be subjected to Israeli targeting.

According to the Gaza Electricity Distribution Company, the Strip, which has a population of about two million people, needs between 450 and five hundred megawatts of electricity, while the available is not more than two hundred megawatts, provided by three sources, which is the only power plant (about fifty megabytes), and the Israeli lines (at 120 Mega), and the Egyptian line that feeds the relatively border city of Rafah (thirty megabytes).