Highlander Owen Grainger is taking on climate change in a war-ravaged part of Iraqi Kurdistan in a bid to make the world a better place
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From timber logging in the Highlands to cleaning up the streets of Iraqi Kurdistan - it's fair to say Owen Grainger has led a varied young life.
Giving up his job, the Strathglass man is now been in the city of Halabja for the past three months working on a plastic recycling project.
The city is infamous for being the site of a chemical attack on March 16, 1988, inflicted by the Iraqi air force under the command of Saddam Hussein.
It is estimated that up to 5,000 civilians died as a result of the Ba'athist regime's attack and many thousands still suffer chronic breathing problems to this day.
From the chemical attacks as well as the eight year long Iran-Iraq war, the region's environment has also suffered catastrophic damage over the past decades.
This has been compounded further by climate change and pollution.
Having previously carried out some voluntary work Owen and his friend Dominik Metzer decided to give up the normal 9 till 5 and head out to assist alongside a grass-roots environmental campaign called "Green City Halabja".
Owen said: “My friend Dominik got in touch with me about a year ago about this.
“I met him through some voluntary work.
“He came up with the idea of a small scale plastic recycling centre.
“I quit my job and came out here with him.
“We left in Nov/Dec.
“It started off very slowly due to the bureaucracy and red tape here.
“After dealing with that we found a suitable workspace and hired two local staff.”
The project involves taking plastic waste and converting it into a variety of useful products, eventually upmarket furniture and jewellery – allowing the plastic to be reused.
Regular environmental seminars are given in the schools and there is a fruitful cooperation with various local civil society groups as well as the municipality.
The collected plastic which the recycling centre in Halabja does not have the capacity to deal with is taken in bulk to larger recycling businesses in the nearby city of Sulaymaniyah and sold.
Owen said: “The idea is to create a social enterprise for the city
“We want to make the Green City Halabja a brand to sell our products in the local region and beyond.
“Schools give us plastic and we give them something back in return like a recycled plastic bench, for example, in order to show them that discarded plastic can really be a useful commodity."
He added: “The environment here is still heavily contaminated from the attack and years of conflict. Halabja has since been rebuilt from the ground up but there are still many massive problems facing people from the severe impacts of climate change and water shortages to governmental corruption and the countless thousands of deadly landmines littering the surrounding landscape.
“What Green City Halabja aims to achieve is to show the world that although there are many challenges facing the community here they will not just accept their fate as poor victimized people: that the citizens are proactively fighting to protect the ecosystem and ensure a green future for the next generations."
Owen said with such huge issues such as ISIS, political instability, corruption and financial crisis taking the centre stage the state of the environment is often ignored.
He hopes that by tackling plastic pollution and providing employment at a local level it will ensure that people can still live in the region for years to come and won't have to leave their homes due to environmental issues.
Owen said: “The people of Iraqi Kurdistan are acutely aware of the shortcomings of the government in most areas including waste management so everyone we have spoken to about our work has been very happy to hear about it.
“The younger generations are particularly eager to learn about the project and how they can benefit their environment through fighting plastic pollution.
“Our project is another piece of the puzzle in the global struggle to make our world liveable in the future.”
