For the past few weeks, my internship has focused on the environmental crisis in Gaza. The Gaza Strip is an unexplored area for the Arava Institute, and they are hoping to raise awareness about the gaps in the environmental infrastructure and the de-development of Gaza. They may get involved with a project there in the future.
Some jarring facts from my research report:
The Gaza Strip suffers from severe energy shortages; since April 2017, Gazans have only received about 4 to 6 hours of electricity a day.
Electricity demand is about 450 MW and the typical supply is 208 MW, but currently Gaza is receiving between 125 MW to 160 MW of electricity. Much of the current gap is a result of a recent political decision by the Palestinian Authority to stop paying Israel for Gaza’s 40 million shekels-a-month electricity bill in order to put pressure on Hamas. As Israel no longer receives payment for electricity, Israel reduced electricity exports to Gaza from 120 MW to 70 MW.
According to the Palestinian Water Authority, 96% of Gaza’s groundwater is polluted and unsuitable for drinking.
According to the World Bank, only 10% of Gazans have access to safe drinking water.
According to the Emergency Water and Sanitation-Hygiene Group (EWASH), every 38 minutes, the equivalent of one Olympic swimming pool of sewage is released into the Mediterranean Sea, totaling 110,000 cubic meters of sewage dumped each day. In a survey from August 2017, the Gaza Health Ministry found that 63% of Gaza’s 40km-long coastline was polluted with sewage.
These statistics are atrocious, and all the issues are interrelated and stem from politics between Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, and Israel. One problem leads to another: Spats between governments lead to a reduced electricity supply. Without electricity, wastewater treatment plants cannot run, leading the plants to dump their sewage. Dumped sewage can lead to an infectious disease outbreak and pollute groundwater and drinking water.
Personally, I place blame on all three governments, as their decisions all resulted in the abysmal quality of life in Gaza, though I would put a little more blame on Hamas. Since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Hamas has done little to build up their infrastructure and provide for the citizens of Gaza. Sometimes infrastructure materials are diverted for terrorist activities. Ultimately, the citizens of Gaza suffer from little electricity, unsafe drinking water, and public health hazards due to the decisions by a few.
Not all my work has been so bleak. A few days ago, I took a tour of Eco Kef (Eco Fun) at Kibbutz Lotan, and I want to share a few highlights from the tour. Eco Kef is an experiential eco village that showcases green building techniques, compost toilets, sustainable agriculture, and of course, it’s all fun! Kids can climb on different animals that are made from mud, straw, and beneath the surface, trash. Anyone can relax inside a teepee built from ivy, date palms, and mud. There is a cute tea house that collects most of its herbs from the garden. The bathrooms feature odorless compost toilets. (The human waste is collected, settles for 6 months, and then is used as fertilizer for the garden).
Kibbutz Lotan also leads month-long intensive green apprenticeship program for participants of all backgrounds. Participants live in mud buildings in a separate off-grid eco campus. The campus runs on solar energy and bio gas, and they even have a laundry bicycle where you can bike for 30 minutes and run an entire cycle of laundry.
Eco Kef is very inspirational, although some ideas are more scalable than others. For example, I really admire mud building. (It is actually a stronger and more durable material than cement.) Still, mud buildings may make sense in different locations than others; I think it fits well with in a desert climate and in a rural area. Generally, I think that it is important that the ideas behind Eco Kef gain wider acceptance. Designers need to think about the user’s needs and also design with sustainability, creativity, and fun in mind.