Recycling Turns Trash to Treasure

Naseb Saad Hasan Altememy, holds up a can of future profits for his company’s recycling center site at a refuse collection site at Joint Base Balad, Iraq. The recycling center, which will provide jobs to local Iraqis, will assist current efforts to sort through daily garbage collection on post for recyclables. Photo by Sgt. Robert G. Cooper III.

BALAD — A war can be messy, literally. From the daily trash collections conducted by roving garbage trucks to amassing scrap metals born from the aftermath of battle, waste management is a serious business for Coalition forces in Iraq.

And that business is about to become worthwhile for the Iraqi people, while also furthering the consolidation of security gains made by the Iraq’s government and security forces.

During a ribbon-cutting ceremony, July 10, Coalition forces, contractors and Iraqi business leaders commemorated the opening of a recycling center designed to turn the military’s trash into Iraq’s economic treasure.

Contracted through an Iraqi-owned company, the center is designed to spur green practices among Joint Base Balad’s waste management operations by creating a hub for recyclables to be collected and shipped to recycling plants throughout Iraq. In the past, recyclables that are collected are either burned in incinerators or stockpiled throughout various holding areas on post. With the new recycling center, large amounts of aluminum, glass, plastics, cardboard and steel products are instead packed up and shipped to recycling centers near Baghdad and sold on the Iraqi market.

“This is a great day for Joint Base Balad because we’ve solved a problem that’s been present here for a long time, and it’s a great day because we have yet another opportunity to help the local economy,” said Brig. Gen. Brian Bishop, 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing and installation commander.

“With the addition of this center, Joint Base Balad looks to reduce its trash volume by literally tons a day,” said Col. Kenneth Newlin, deputy commander of the 76th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. “The center will also have the ability to drive new industries here and allow us to aggressively seek a new market for plastics recycling locally.”

“If we’re ever going to leave this country, we have to build not only by supporting its people, but its economy, too,” said Air Force Capt. Robert Yates, a contracting officer with the Air Force’s Joint Contracting Command-Iraq.

Beyond providing a green approach to bolstering the Iraqi economy, the center will also present jobs to local Iraqis.

God Bless your daughter for her service—and yours too, I’m sure.

A retired Army Reserve colonel at our church was in Civil Affairs, vetting the Judges for the Iraqi Courts after the fall of Sadaam. He managed to help get a young man out of Iraq, after many false starts and scary moments. The Iraqi’s father had been killed by Sadaam’s goons right in front of his home and he feared for his life. He told us about unspeakable horrors against ordinary people in his family and neighborhood, and his undying gratitude to be in the USA. He has been working for a law firm and hopes to eventually go to law school.

His sister, the colonel’s translater, had escaped earlier. She now is teaching Arabic at a special facility in California, I believe, and is in a master’s program.

I’m only a grandmother but even I know democracy doesn’t happen instantly when people have endured decades under a brutal dictator. Apparently some of our politicians don’t understand that yet. I often wonder what our troops think of them.

Our colonel was in Civil Affairs and

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