Garbage has piled up across the West Bank as Israeli restrictions have cut into Palestinians’ ability to manage waste — and two Palestinian entrepreneurs are now trying to fill the gap with recycling operations.
The waste crisis
NPR reported Tuesday, May 27, 2026, that communities throughout the West Bank are living amid mounting trash. The restrictions have disrupted normal waste removal, leaving residents with few options for disposal. Eleanor Beardsley documented the conditions on the ground for NPR.
Into that gap stepped two Palestinian entrepreneurs. Their work focuses on recycling — turning the waste that can’t be moved into something that can at least be sorted and repurposed. The report doesn’t name the individuals or detail the scale of their operations, but their efforts represent one of the few organized responses to the crisis so far.
The situation is grim by any measure. Uncollected trash creates public health risks; it also signals how broken the basic infrastructure has become under the current restrictions. Neither the Israeli government nor Palestinian Authority officials are quoted in the NPR report addressing the buildup directly.
What the two entrepreneurs can accomplish against the scope of the problem — and whether the restrictions will ease — isn’t addressed in the report.
Originally reported by NPR. Read the original report.
