‘Unlicensed plastic scrap grinding workshops, brick factories blamed for pollution in Sahab’

SAHAB — Unlicensed plastic scrap grinding workshops and brick factories in Sahab Municipality are causing air pollution and generating waste that blocks the city’s drainage, according to an official.

More than 40 plastic scrap grinding workshops are scattered across the town as well as scores of unlicensed brick factories, the majority of which are concentrated around the walls of the King Abdullah II Industrial Estate, which is one of the largest industrial estates in the Kingdom.

Omar Jwaid, Jordan Industrial Estates Company (JIEC) chief executive, said brick factories and scrap grinding workshops are creating environmental problems and jeopardising the industries inside the King Abdullah II Industrial Estate.

“The workshops are dumping their waste around the walls of the industrial estate, parts of which are now under the threat of collapse, while the waste during winter is washed up into the estate’s drainage system,” Jwaid told The Jordan Times.

Several industries and factories inside the walls of the estate are being flooded every time it rains, as the drainage system is blocked with the waste and debris of the plastic scrap grinding workshops and brick factories, he added.

Jwaid called for monitoring the activities of the unlicensed workshops and factories, and renovating the industrial estate’s wastewater treatment plant, which he said is under increasing pressure.

Minister of Environment Yaseen Khayyat said the ministry is aware of the environmental challenges in Sahab, noting that many issues necessitate practical solutions.

Khayyat underscored that the wastewater treatment plant is among the ministry’s priorities, noting that although linking the industrial estate to the sewage system is costly, it remains a proposed solution.

Situated southeast of Amman, Sahab has a population of around 180,000. It stretches over 12 square kilometres, some 40 to 50 per cent of which are occupied by industries.