Ariana News Agency-\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Zuhal Atmar, 35, has set up a recycling plant where she processes 33 tons of garbage a week. She\u2019s the first woman in Afghanistan to have launched such a business, often at a high personal cost.<\/p>\n Her drive, she says, stems from her wish to live \u201cgreener,\u201d and from the realization that Kabul has been \u2014 at least in Afghanistan \u2014 contributing to a changing climate.<\/p>\n \u201cThe city has one of the worst air pollution rates, and we toss away absurd quantities of one-time-use plastic,\u201d Atmar said. \u201cI had to change something.\u201d<\/p>\n Running a business as a woman isn\u2019t easy here. In Afghanistan, reputation is a lifeline when it comes to entrepreneurship, and Atmar is fighting for hers.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople constantly threaten to destroy my business or my reputation,\u201d she said. \u201cI know a handful of men who run similar ventures and they are jealous. They don\u2019t accept a woman doing the same.\u201d<\/p>\n The mother of a 3-year-old, she lives in a modern high-rise overlooking the mountains that surround the capital. Her life is uncommon for a woman in Afghanistan; so is recycling.<\/p>\n Kabul\u2019s 6 million people generate up to 308 tons of trash each day, according to the city. Most ends up in the city\u2019s only landfill, neither separated nor reused, guarded by 60 armed men protecting the machinery used to manage it, even as toxic waste slowly seeps into the ground. The trash heaps grow each day.<\/p>\n Atmar, who grew up as a refugee in Pakistan and returned to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban and having completed college, has been in the trash business for seven years. She first set up a waste-management plant, separating the useful from the throwaways, but later decided to fully focus on recycling. She purchased $240,000 worth of Chinese machinery, a sum partly saved up from previous jobs, but mostly donated by the U.S. government through the USAID program.<\/p>\n Located between mud brick houses on the far eastern outskirts of the city, her factory \u2014 likewise surrounded by brick walls and a heavy gate \u2014 goes almost unnoticed from the outside. Inside, mountains of trash are piled up, with 70 employees wading into the piles to sort out what\u2019s useful.<\/p>\n Atmar focuses on paper waste, which she buys from scavengers. Trash collection is barely regulated in Kabul, and while there are 1,500 drop-off points, thousands of scavengers roam the streets daily, collecting items of value that are being tossed away.<\/p>\n Her staffers hand-sort through the piles of paper and cardboard, singling out any remains of plastic or perishables. The machines do the rest.<\/p>\n The paper is shredded, cleaned and bleached before it is dried and pressed into toilet paper that\u2019s sold across the country.<\/p>\n The city targets about $14 million annually for waste management, an amount that\u2019s not nearly enough, says Behzad Ghyasi, the municipality\u2019s former Director of Sanitation Services.<\/p>\n Atmar said her work deeply affects her personal life. Her business started off smoothly, but she quickly received threats to her life, and a handful of men who run similar businesses have teamed up to bring her down, she said. Afghanistan has deeply rooted conservative beliefs, with women often seen as second-class citizens. She says there are five other factories like hers, all run by men.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of judgment and many people are bothered by me running my own business,\u201d she explained. \u201cIt\u2019s jealousy and wrong competition, and I think men here feel threatened. I might face more challenges as a woman, but it just means I have to fight harder. I\u2019m not going to stay behind.\u201d<\/p>\n While the factory\u2019s neighborhood has seen frequent terrorist attacks, Atmar walks confidently through her recycling plant, her hair covered loosely by a scarf, her arms in motion while shouting instructions to employees over the sound of machines. She\u2019s confident, not scared, even though she knows she could easily become a target. Outside, not a single woman walks on the street.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone needs to start feeling ownership for this city for things to improve,\u201d Ghyasi said.<\/p>\n Atmar, who gets up before sunrise each morning to manage both her household and work, says she wants to set up additional recycling plants and advocacy campaigns to teach people how to produce less trash, and introduce paper bags to replace plastic ones.<\/p>\n \u201cKabul is environmentally unhealthy. Pollution is skyrocketing, especially in winter when coal is burned everywhere, and septic sewage contaminates our water. When it comes to the environment, we can\u2019t wait for peace to come first. We need to act now,\u201d she said, while admitting that daily attacks and fighting across the country spread uncertainty and fear.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t see this changing anytime soon,\u201d she said. \u201cSome days there will be an attack, but soon after, we return to normal until the next attack. It\u2019s a cycle. We have no choice but to still invest in our country and its environment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After decades of conflict across Afghanistan, recycling is not at the top of most people\u2019s agendas. But now, one Kabul woman is declaring war on the Afghan capital\u2019s trash.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_mat_hreflang_tags":[],"addvideo":"","video_duration":"","farsit":"","target":"0","top_stories":"0","top":"1"},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[39,654],"class_list":["post-4455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-note","tag-afghanistan","tag-recycling"],"acf":{"myctype":"change","target":false,"top_stories":false,"top":true,"farsit":""},"yoast_head":"\n