City in Iraq Opens its First Recycling, Production Plant

Iraq, with a population of 34.3 million, is estimated to produce 31,000 tons of solid waste every day while the capacity to collect this waste is 4,000 tons per day.

 

That substantial discrepancy between trash and the capacity to manage it, courtesy the World Health Organization. In fact, the current operational and technical management capacity of disposing solid waste in Iraq is estimated at just about 25% of the country’s needs.

 

So clearly this is a large gap that needs filled and it looks like at least one city is working to solve this problem. According to an article on NRT, a Kurdish language news television network in Iraq, the city of Basra— Iraq’s main port—has installed a $15 million new plastics facility, and while the facility will look to produce a wide variety of plastic goods, it also includes the city’s first recycling production line.  In the report, Ali Chasib, Head of the Basra Investment Commission, says:

 

"The facility produces all types of PVC products including rubbish bags, medical plastic bags, plastic pipes and plastic sheeting used in agriculture and greenhouses. The project is an ISO-registered company and has a high production capacity of all its production lines, which makes it a strong competitor that can meet the demands of the province and might even cover the demands of other provinces.”

 

The facility is 4,000 square meters (43, 055 square feet) and has four production lines. It can produce up to 25,000 tons of plastic products for agricultural and industrial purposes and up to 10,000 tons of oil and sewage pipes of different sizes and diameters per year, NRT wrote.

 

Iraq's government released a five-year economic plan in 2013 with a goal to diversify beyond oil production as well as develop the country's industrial sector. (Photo courtesy Basra Investment Commission)