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How scientists and refugees brought green to the Desert Garden

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 1, page 439 (2020)Cite this article

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Through the Desert Garden program, scientists and refugees have turned two problems — the inability to grow fresh fruits and vegetables in desert refugee camps and a warehouse of unrecyclable foam mattresses — into a humanitarian solution.

The Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan is a UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) safe haven for 80,000 refugees from the Syrian war. It is inhabited by many former farmers, but poor soil, water restrictions and local rules that restrict permanent structures (including planting in the ground) make it difficult to grow food in this desert camp. Furthermore, while the camp has the most effective plastics recycling scheme in Jordan, unrecyclable polyurethane foam mattresses were piling up in a warehouse. Despite apparently being a waste management problem, scientists at the University of Sheffield working on soil-free, hydroponic food production in polyurethane foam recognized that repurposing the mattresses could allow refugees to grow their own fresh food.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Moaed A. Al Meselmani, Harry C. Wright, Duncan D. Cameron & Anthony J. Ryan

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  1. Moaed A. Al Meselmani
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  2. Harry C. Wright
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  3. Duncan D. Cameron
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  4. Anthony J. Ryan
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Correspondence to Anthony J. Ryan.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Desert Garden: sheffield.ac.uk/desert-garden

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Al Meselmani, M.A., Wright, H.C., Cameron, D.D. et al. How scientists and refugees brought green to the Desert Garden. Nat Rev Earth Environ 1, 439 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-020-0081-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-020-0081-7

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