Protecting ourselves, from ourselvesYemen needs waste management plan [Archives:2004/712/Business & Economy]

A 10-year waste management program costing an estimated $200 million is what Yemen may needs to clean up the country.
In the meantime, authorities are drawing up a national strategy for handling the country's dangerous waste, by building a database and information system, as the amount of waste is estimated to be about 400,000 tons a year.
The strategy that international expert Nafeesa Abu al-Saud contributed, includes finding a national expertise in the fields of assessing and managing the waste, proceeding from decentralized administration, and enhancing the private sector, role as well as private societies, civil organizations and various companies.
It also includes the use of a technology to lessen the waste's danger and amount.
Among the essential components for the implementation of the strategy is raising the level of awareness and improving ways of dealing with waste.
Nafeesa points out that the strategy has four stages over ten years, at a cost of about $200 million.
The first stage includes the implementation of basic activities of the system and the second contains evaluation of the present systems and carrying out experimental projects.
In the third stage the technical, economic, institutional and social structures would be completed to include governorates where the quantities of dangerous waste reach 75%.
The fourth stage for implementing the plan in the rest of the governorates takes four years.
Yemen's waste includes industrial waste of 257,080 tons a year, health care waste of 47,987 tons, expired vehicle batteries, 284,473 batteries and expired insecticides estimated at 300 tons a year.
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