JumpStart International

JumpStart International has begun clearing a rubble field near the Mahmudia-Baghdad highway with three bulldozers.

Traditionally, JumpStart has focused on clearing damaged buildings, but we are now beginning general rubble removal projects. Because all buildings in Iraq are built using concrete or brick, housing construction and renovations (not to mention demolitions) create a huge amount of physical waste. With the traffic as jammed as it has become since the end of the war, and the lawlessness still unabated, people routinely dump their garbage throughout the city at impromptu dump sites, exacerbating the reconstruction progress, and further creating an atmosphere of chaos in the city.

This is the second rubble field JumpStart is clearing. The first was a rubble field near Hay Al Farat community clinic.

 A view of the rubble field (less than one percent of the area). The total rubble field is probably about 120 acres.

JumpStart has a few bulldozers and a backhoe at the site. In the distance, scavengers look for metal to sell.

Don't you just love pictures of bulldozers? JumpStart has about 6 bulldozers at work throughout Baghdad.