A small factory in southern Gaza gives a second life to outdated textbooks and used school worksheets, turning them into egg trays, footage filmed on Thursday shows.
While the siege imposed since 2007 has increased unemployment and poverty rates in Gaza, a Palestinian, Akram Al-Amour, has managed to recycle paper and turn it into egg trays, at a lower cost than imported trays, thus providing a source of income for him and a number of unemployed young people.
The idea of recycling waste paper came up to the forty-five years-old-man when he noticed that many chicken farms around Khan Yunis are purchasing a large number of imported egg trays.
“The daily recycling process amounts to 300 to 400 kilograms of waste paper and produces an estimated 3,000 boxes that are shipped to egg farms in Gaza,” he said.
As for the recycling stages, he explained that the paper is collected and then fed into a large mill that cut paper into small strips, and then mixed it with water, before being shaped as egg trays. The recycled paper is mainly provided by the Ministry of Education to the small factory.
Regarding the obstacles they are facing, Al-Amour stated that electricity outage is the most critical issue for the project, adding that the electricity runs for eight hours a day only.
The densely populated Gaza Strip produces about 1,800 tons of solid waste every day, of which about 14 per cent is paper and cardboard, local media reported in June.
