Development of Management Options For industrial Wastewater in Nablus City

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Date
2003
Authors
Rana "M. Saleh" Fares Al-Habash
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Severe water shortage, threat of pollution to its limited resources, lack of national environmental enforcement measures and a concentrated and ever growing urban population are common features in Palestine. Low water consumption rates associated with high strength municipal wastewater production and lack of adequate municipal wastewater management exacerbate the situation. Efforts to reduce industrial pollution in Palestine like other developing countries, have focused on environmental institutions and legal frameworks, largely by establishing command-and control regulations. However, formal regulations alone were not very effective in reducing industrial pollution in these countries. Although there is no substitute for an environmental regulatory regime, there is a need to focus on incentives for action by the industrial sector. In this research study, management options for the industrial wastewater from the western and eastern areas of Nablus city are developed. These options including managerial and technical frameworks are based on the results obtained from field surveys, site visits, and data analysis of available literature as well as findings of the distributed questionnaires. Major findings obtained revealed that large quantities of industrial wastewater input and through-put features, such as sinkholes and waterways to the sensitive recharge areas of the aquifer system for Palestine. This unconscious practice would cause severe quality degradation to the groundwater and surrounding environment. Several innovative approaches emerged as effective ways to improve environmental compliance were analyzed and discussed. These approaches are based on: (l) introduction of cleaner production principles to reduce or minimize pollution loads discharged from coming out from industrial enterprises; (2) adoption of better environmental management practices to cope with different situations; (3) an elastic legal approach expressed through the state—of-art regulations; (4) introduction of new role of government to address the interaction between community and industrial market. However, to achieve the major aims set by these approaches, it is very important to involve the local government, industrial sector, local unions and NGO’s in preparing guidelines for an integrated environmental compliance. The potential heavy polluters related to industrial wastewater are determined at generation source and pollution type, the polluting practices, the existing effluent control, raw materials used and the end products. The results however suggest that the introduced technical and managerial frameworks entail the adoption of ISO 14000 for Environmental Management System (EMS), the implementation of low cost Cleaner Production Technology (CPT), the new governmental role to embark on information to address interaction between community and industrial market. Pollution discharge permits; formal monitoring and inspection, and Palestinian environmental roles were also introduced and discussed.
Severe water shortage, threat of pollution to its limited resources, lack of national environmental enforcement measures and a concentrated and ever growing urban population are common features in Palestine. Low water consumption rates associated with high strength municipal wastewater production and lack of adequate municipal wastewater management exacerbate the situation. Efforts to reduce industrial pollution in Palestine like other developing countries, have focused on environmental institutions and legal frameworks, largely by establishing command-and control regulations. However, formal regulations alone were not very effective in reducing industrial pollution in these countries. Although there is no substitute for an environmental regulatory regime, there is a need to focus on incentives for action by the industrial sector. In this research study, management options for the industrial wastewater from the western and eastern areas of Nablus city are developed. These options including managerial and technical frameworks are based on the results obtained from field surveys, site visits, and data analysis of available literature as well as findings of the distributed questionnaires. Major findings obtained revealed that large quantities of industrial wastewater input and through-put features, such as sinkholes and waterways to the sensitive recharge areas of the aquifer system for Palestine. This unconscious practice would cause severe quality degradation to the groundwater and surrounding environment. Several innovative approaches emerged as effective ways to improve environmental compliance were analyzed and discussed. These approaches are based on: (l) introduction of cleaner production principles to reduce or minimize pollution loads discharged from coming out from industrial enterprises; (2) adoption of better environmental management practices to cope with different situations; (3) an elastic legal approach expressed through the state—of-art regulations; (4) introduction of new role of government to address the interaction between community and industrial market. However, to achieve the major aims set by these approaches, it is very important to involve the local government, industrial sector, local unions and NGO’s in preparing guidelines for an integrated environmental compliance. The potential heavy polluters related to industrial wastewater are determined at generation source and pollution type, the polluting practices, the existing effluent control, raw materials used and the end products. The results however suggest that the introduced technical and managerial frameworks entail the adoption of ISO 14000 for Environmental Management System (EMS), the implementation of low cost Cleaner Production Technology (CPT), the new governmental role to embark on information to address interaction between community and industrial market. Pollution discharge permits; formal monitoring and inspection, and Palestinian environmental roles were also introduced and discussed.
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