Rum Tourists' Waste Masks "Valley of the Moon"

Wadi Rum, or "Valley of the Moon," is a Jordanian tourist attraction whose landmarks are distorted by piles of waste stacked near tourist camps dotting the desert. Meanwhile, authorities trade accusations about who is responsible for the valley's condition.

The Rum Natural Reserve (north of Aqaba) is home to 200 tourist camp sites, which produce tons of waste every day. The waste remains stacked near various camps for several days because municipal waste compactor trucks cannot drive in desert sands to reach those camps.

"My camp is eight kilometers away from the nearest municipal garbage collection point, and every other day, I transport 10-15 bags of litter at my own expense in my car which cost me a monthly JOD 100 ($140)", says Salim Al-Zalabiah, owner of the Quiet Village Camp.

Al-Zalabiah asks the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority – as Wadi Rum is under its municipal jurisdiction – to provide an appropriate dumpsite for the waste produced by tourism camps, as "most of them transfer their waste in private cars to the village of Rum and dump it in any garbage container; sometimes we deposit those trash bags in the main parking lot at Rum's entrance."

The situation is no different for Abdel-Rahman Al-Zawaydah (owner of Al-Zawaydah Camp in Rum). He says, "We had to allocate a room where we collect the waste, and we take the garbage bags every morning by three cars to the Rum village. Unfortunately, the number of containers allocated to the residents is not enough, and compactor trucks do not enter the campsites because of the nature of the desert area. The waste containers in the parking lot at the entrance of Rum is another problem because this limits the parking space and is a bad enough view in a touristic region."

Al-Zawaydah says his camp produces 200 kilograms of waste a day. Each car he uses to move the waste away from the camp costs him JOD 30. "The camp is 10 kilometers away from the nearest garbage point," he explains. "Some camps are forced to burn the waste, and this is a disaster."

The waste volume produced at the camps led some to dispose their waste into neighboring villages, such as Al-Disah. Faisal Mutlaq, head of the municipality's development unit, says four "dirty" outposts have been identified as landfills hazardous-to-health on the outskirts of villages neighboring the Rum region, adding to the financial burden borne by the municipality.

Mutlaq says that his municipality has asked Aqaba Authority, whose jurisdiction covers the Rum region, to solve the problem of campsite waste but has not received any response. "Either the waste will be burned on site or camp owners will set up (random) landfills in separate areas," according to Mutlaq.

The Aqaba Authority Responds

The tourism and environment commissioner of the Aqaba Special Authority, Nidal Al-Majali, claims that campsite owners are responsible for waste collection: "They are responsible for removing the waste and transferring it to a designated site at the entrance of the Visitor’s Center of the Rum Reserve from where a waste collection company will pick it up."

Al-Majali says the waste collection company is the same company in charge of waste collection in Rum region and it has 11 employees working seven days a week and its compactor truck collects waste on a daily basis.

When Al-Majali was presented with pictures of piles of garbage at the designated site, he replied that "The pictures must have been taken half an hour or an hour before the compactor truck was due to arrive." He added that such complaints were "repeated often and are of malicious nature whose purpose was to pressure the special authority to appoint someone at the garbage collection company or for abuse as the compactor picks up the waste daily".

Al Majali added that the Aqaba Authority will soon introduce a system for registering camps to force their owners to pay annual (municipal fees) in return for garbage collection as hotel owners do. "Since the camps were put up, their owners have not paid one dinar in return for waste collection," says Al-Majali. The new fee though will not put an end to the transportation of the camps garbage in the vehicles of their owners and at their own expense to the designated areas in the village.

Environmental Consequences

Rum, a scenic region, is home to important fauna and flora that could be endangered by the waste crisis, according to Mohammad Al-Tawaha, acting executive director of the Royal Marine Conservation Society. "The presence of waste in some environmental sites can pose a real threat, such as the elimination of certain plant, grass or flower species," he says. "The presence of some medical waste such as used needles can have serious consequences."

As the sun fades over the camp sites in the “Valley of the Moon” , its magic is quickly replaced by lines of smoke from the burning garbage in the evening. The various parties meanwhile are busy trading accusations while a solution for the camps’ waste continue to prove elusive though it concerns a prime touristic area in Jordan.