"Greening Jordan"

Recently, a large part of our job has included revolutionizing the ways in which King’s deals with waste. Nayab and I are on an environmental rampage and are implementing a variety of awareness activities, recycling methods and forming campus habits that will reduce waste and benefit our planet. Among these are a film series, compost, regular collection of recyclables, and the cessation of paper towels and plastic bags.

To induce change efficiently and successfully we have forged a connection with a brand new, grassroots recycling agency in Jordan. Entity Green is a company led by Philip Griffith, previous head of Habitat for Humanity Jordan, which serves to educate and professionally train former street scavengers in the art and science of dividing waste and recycling. Their clients range from local family households to major hotels in Amman, who send their waste over to have it properly sorted and shipped out to major recycling corporations. The company is extremely innovative and finds a use for everything that passes through the site. For example, all of the bread that they receive in the trash is dried in the sun and sold to farmers and all of the remnants of water in plastic bottles is used for cleaning.

Nayab and I accompanied our boss to the site to meet the director and tour the facilities. It is basically a wide-open space with very organized collections of recyclables. There are heaps of industrial metal scraps, stacks of glass bottles, bags filled with paper and piles of wood. As the saying goes, one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure.

Not only is this company extremely creative and successful in sustaining a business solely with its own and reusable resources. But it also serves as a forum for empowerment and educations. All of the employees come from the streets and are given the opportunity to have extensive training, pay and an education while making a huge difference in a country that cannot afford to generate so much waste.

After our extremely insightful visit, Philip journeyed to King’s Academy to take a tour, assess our campus and help us get on the eco-friendly track. It is our hope to become a green campus, and if we work closely with Entity Green, sending all of our waste to their site and make behavioral changes on campus, we can accomplish our goals to function responsibly and set the precedent for other schools and institutions.