Tackling Air Pollution in Amman

Tue, 20 Jun 2006 11:04:00 GMT

Photos by Abed Sultan

Special thanks to Abed Sultan for raising the issue and providing the photos...

By Tala Bassam Momani

Let me tell you what happened yesterday: we were sitting peacefully in the office (Friends of the Earth - Middle East) when Abdel-Rahman (my colleague) came running from outside the office yelling 'Tala and Rakan come and see this!'

We went up to the building roof, clambered over the water tanks and looked where he was pointing to - I honestly don't know how Abd knew about it - there was dark yellow smoke coming out of the building next to us. It turned out that the smoke was Nitrogen Oxide (a toxic air-polluting and carcinogenic gas) which is typically a by-product from gold crafting.

Abd found out that we do have a gold workshop in the building next to us so I called the Civil Defence after unsuccessfully trying to reach the Environmental Police. We transformed our office into an operations room!! About 20 minutes later we heard sirens and three fire trucks and two ambulances pulled up with about twelve firemen fully equipped and holding masks and air regulators went up to our roof to see what we called about.

I honestly felt guilty after I saw them carrying heavy oxygen tanks on their backs and up three storeys (I wondered whether we might have over-reacted!).

Anyway, we told them about the fumes, however it turned out they could not do anything since by the time they had arrived the smoke had stopped coming out and we had no proof or evidence and quite naturally the people in charge of that workshop denied everything we said!

For me the case has not ended yet; I'm going to keep a close eye on that workshop which is polluting and poisoning Amman's air.

Treks and Trails of Jordan: Air pollution

Tackling Air Pollution in Amman