AMMAN - The Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) will start within two months implementing the first phase of a project to sort and recycle solid waste, a GAM official said on Wednesday.

Under the first phase, a total of 1,000 recycling bins will be distributed in three districts in Amman, including Wadi Seer, Zahran and Bader for sorting waste into paper, metal, plastic and glass, head of the environmental studies section at GAM’s Environment and Sanitation Department, Bashar Majali, said.

Late last year, the Ministry of Environment announced plans for implementing the project in cooperation with GAM and the Jordan Environment Society.

The Collection and Segregation of Solid Waste project seeks to handle garbage in a more productive way through recycling and increasing the capacity of landfills.

The capital's increasing garbage is dumped at the Ghabawi landfill, which was designed to receive 2,500 tonnes of waste per day. Jordan generates 1.5 million tonnes of solid waste per year, while Amman alone generates 2,200 tonnes of waste daily.

GAM officials said the volume of garbage this summer will increase with the growth in Amman's population by up to 750 tonnes daily.

“We will carry out a campaign to raise the public’s awareness through newspapers, radio and TV on the importance of sorting and recycling waste,” Majali told The Jordan Times.

He added that under the project’s second phase, a company will be responsible for collecting and segregating solid waste, by placing bins in different neighbourhoods in Amman.

“If the project proved successful in these three areas, more bins will be distributed in various parts of the capital,” the GAM official said, adding that the municipality recently has floated a tender worth JD1 million for the purchase of 2,500 plastic bins for storing and segregating waste.

With the expected increase in the volume of waste, GAM announced earlier that working hours of municipal workers were raised by 80 per cent during Fridays and official holidays to keep the garbage from piling up and preventing the spread of foul smells and insects.

Currently, around 4,300 GAM employees work on keeping the capital tidy, while an estimated fleet of 290 compactor trucks serve the capital's 27 districts.