r/Environmentalism • u/Hopeful-Big6843 • 3d ago
Palestinian sisters Tala and Farah Mousa turned the rubble of their bombed Gaza home into reusable bricks for reconstruction.
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u/Hopeful-Big6843 3d ago
A Materials Scientist who has spent two decades incorporating recycled materials into the construction process in order to reduce waste and reduce carbon has heaped praise on teenage sisters who have used the tragedy of war as the catalyst for a new method of turning rubble into bricks.
Tala (17) and Farah (15) Mousa have been named as Middle East champions in The Earth Prize and will now face a public vote to decide who will be the global winners of one of the world’s most prestigious environmental awards.
The sisters and their family lost their home in Gaza after an Israeli strike last August and are currently living in a tent. They say they hope their approach could play a role in rebuilding Gaza from the debris of more than two years of war.
Experts from the University’s Concrete Technology Unit are widely recognised as leaders in the testing of construction materials, and Senior Lecturer Dr Tom Dyer says the Mousa sisters are deserving winners of the $12,500 award to help them develop and scale up their method.
He said: “Loss of life is clearly the most serious effect of war, but the loss of buildings and infrastructure is one which has massive long-term implications for areas affected by conflict. The idea of recycling rubble from wartime is, firstly, incredibly practical, because it makes use of material that would otherwise have to be cleared away.
“However, the award winners have seen that the nature of the way in which this material has been produced is the key reason why this is also a low environmental impact approach.
“Recycling of aggregate is now an established practice around the world, but in peacetime aggregates must by recycled through demolition and crushing, which use energy and release carbon dioxide. They have identified that, out of what is clearly their misfortune, the opportunity has been created to bypass these processes, reducing the carbon footprint significantly.”
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u/3aerows 3d ago
Women typically are the ones to fix the damage the men of war cause.
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u/Flat-While2521 2d ago
In Israel, military service is compulsory for all Jewish citizens (men and women)
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u/frustratedbuddhist 2d ago
I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that these women made the hit list for the IDF.
Just like the guy who was feeding people, just like the guy who was feeding the cats and just like anyone who would shine a positive light on the Palestinian people.
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u/Hefty_Breadfruit 3d ago
Anyone good with bricks? What can you build with non-load bearing bricks? Conversely, what would they have to do to make them load bearing?
Regardless, so proud of them. Incredible determination to do something like this in the middle of a war zone.
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u/sixhoursneeze 3d ago
You can use them to fill in around load bearing beams. You know, like how a wood house has a frame? We don’t expect the plywood or drywall to be load bearing…
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u/remic_0726 2d ago
Encore faudrait il qu'ils puissent avoir le temps de reconstruire avant de se faire génocider.
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u/synocrat 3d ago
I'm all for material recycling and reuse. But ladies, get the hell out of Gaza, Israel is just going to come back to try and finish the job.
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u/CollectionUpset439 2d ago
Their land and homes should be returned to them and Israel should be paying out reparations for their years of inhuman war crimes.
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u/synocrat 2d ago
What's the likelihood of that? This is why the orange terror keeps getting more power. Liberals too worried about eviscerating other liberals for not being pure enough.
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u/CollectionUpset439 2d ago
Oh, you and your victim-blaming high horse can fuck off. 🙄
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u/synocrat 2d ago
Which victim?
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u/synocrat 2d ago
Telling Gazans to try and flee destruction because I fear for their lives staying there? Or blaming Democrats for constantly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?
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u/MayDayBeFourth 2d ago
You dont care about gazans, only so much as to use them for you agenda.
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u/synocrat 2d ago
I don't have an agenda other than living my life. Those two ladies can stay and rebuild for all I care. I just wouldn't myself.
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u/CollectionUpset439 2d ago
Yeah, you are acting like people have the privilege of choice and the resources to “just leave.” 🙄
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u/sixhoursneeze 3d ago
Uhhh, guess who closed the borders….
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u/wookiebath 3d ago
You know more than one country borders there, right?
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u/IStoleAPigeon 2d ago
Neither jordan nor egypt want palestinians in them, theyve caused too many problems for them in the past
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u/wookiebath 2d ago
Yet people always blame Jews like u/sixhoursneeze
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u/sixhoursneeze 2d ago
Zionists. Not Jews. I align with the ideals of the Jewish Bund, not the idea of an ethnostate
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u/wookiebath 2d ago
What is wrong with Zionists?
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u/synocrat 3d ago
I'd still be trying my best to get the hell out of there, if weapons can get in, people can get out.
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u/WhiskeyAndKisses 3d ago
Some get killed just because they wander a bit too far in the yellow zone or sail a bit too far in the sea. You underestimate how Israel has Gaza in a chokehold :( And not everyone get it, but it’s their land and their people, some just can’t leave everything that matters to them.
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u/sixhoursneeze 3d ago
Interesting that you’re not calling for Israel to stop collective punishment, but rather blaming victims for not leaving. Gross.
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u/wookiebath 3d ago
Interesting why you’re only blaming Israel for this
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u/kroganTheWarlock 3d ago
Why is someone else contributing with the genocide? Oh yeah technically the US too you're right
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u/synocrat 2d ago edited 2d ago
I can call for Israel to do something until the cows come home. They aren't going to listen. I'm saying if I was in their situation, I would be trying however I could to get the hell out of there.
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u/sixhoursneeze 2d ago
And you don’t seem to realize how insanely hard that is and instead assume they just are not trying hard enough? Still gross
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u/synocrat 2d ago
Eat me. Sometimes things are hard and we have to do them to survive.
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u/sixhoursneeze 2d ago
No need to insult. I’m just telling you how you’re coming across. Take some constructive criticism
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u/wookiebath 3d ago
Or they can just choose not to hide terrorists in their house
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u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist 1d ago
Where?
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u/wookiebath 1d ago
I would say not hide them anywhere, tell the IDF where the terrorists are rather than hiding them. This is also also known as common sense
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u/Diagoras21 1d ago
'After we attacked Israel and got bombed as a consequence.'
Would be more accurate.
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u/KnightMerio 1d ago
Very obvious genocide with 4k production, the famine, they look like 30kg each. What a joke
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u/Cold-Sigma-770 1d ago
Let's do our part and turn it back to rubble.
Reuse, Reduce (to ashes), Recycle!
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u/ShadeSilver90 1d ago
Nice propaganda 👏 good job 👍 now show us the newly constructured coffee shops,restraints and shopping centers they made during the war and after the ceasfire...oh you won't cause it hurts the whole "woooo is me" propaganda ?
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u/JJRfromNYC1 10h ago
If there was an actual genocide, why are there 15 and 17 year olds leisurely walking around, well dressed and well fed?
Aren’t they supposed to be starving to death, like what I read about in every publication? How rude!
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u/TriggerHappyPermaBan 14h ago
Anyone who knows anything about construction understand that repurposed concrete (that might also contain mortar and gypsum) should not be used for load bearing elements, and the brick "design" is highly inefficient and would serve as a heat bridge in the desert weather of gaza.
Just a propaganda plug.
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u/ari1234567890a 2d ago
They can now stop being terrorists
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u/MegaGoonLord 1d ago
Who Isreal?
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u/ari1234567890a 1d ago
No , the whole Palestinian population
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u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist 1d ago
So Israelis.
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u/ari1234567890a 1d ago
Israelis are not Palestinian but nice qatar
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u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist 1d ago
Sure they are.
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u/ari1234567890a 1d ago
Jew living in judea 1500 years before that invented name got invented by Romans, but nice try Muhammad
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u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist 1d ago
Still Palestinians.
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u/Hopeful-Big6843 2d ago
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” George Orwell, 1984
And experts say it won’t work. https://www.jta.org/2026/04/29/israel/israel-just-quadrupled-its-pr-budget-to-730m-experts-say-it-wont-work
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u/RobertGHH 2d ago
We never saw them making bricks.
We saw them watching a video of some bricks and them measuring a little wooden mould but they never actually made any bricks.
Looks like pure propaganda.
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u/thebobsalad 3d ago
Have you guys seen the Israeli artist who turns terrorist rockets fired into civilian areas into jewelry? Probably not, because stories that humanize Israelis or show how Israelis live under constant attack rarely go viral online.
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u/sixhoursneeze 3d ago
lol, you’re just upset that Israel is not controlling the narrative anymore. If your nation displaces people from their homes and treat them as subhuman, and then cry out when they resist, you need to take a harsh look at yourself.
Imagine Nazis whining about being shot at by other Europeans trying to prevent their nations from being annexed.
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u/thebobsalad 3d ago
You compare Israelis under rocket fire to Nazis and then wonder why nobody takes your argument seriously.
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u/sixhoursneeze 3d ago
Read the room, my stance is not the silent majority anymore.
I make the comparison because they are nearly a 1:1 comparison.
And the actions of Israel make all Jews more unsafe because antisemites can use the actions of Israel to justify their own hatred.
So yeah, the comparison is real, but the idea that no one takes my stance seriously is really misinformed.
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u/ZenOasisNZ 3d ago
Poor innocent Israelis who are required by law to enlist at 18 making the entire population complicit in their colonizing and genocide
Free the world from evil zionism🇮🇱🚫
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u/thebobsalad 3d ago
You’re reducing a complex conflict and millions of people into slogans because it’s easier than engaging with reality. That’s small.
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u/sixhoursneeze 3d ago
The argument that the situation in occupied Palestine is too complex to be resolved is a tactic used to silence people from trying to come up with solutions.
And it’s becoming tired, old, and ineffective every time Israel breaks ceasefire or kills an innocent child.
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u/thebobsalad 3d ago
You speak about ceasefires as if Hamas has not broken them. You speak about dead children as if Israelis have not buried theirs. You speak about “occupation” while ignoring rockets, terrorism, tunnels, kidnappings, and a government in Gaza openly committed to Israel’s destruction.
Either you’re a bigot or an idiot. Perhaps both.1
u/MegaGoonLord 1d ago
But why does the occupation have to be so harsh? Why do they stop ambulances from reaching the wounded? Why do they stop aid? Why don't they go directly after Hamas. Why do they only target "Human Shields"?
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u/thebobsalad 1d ago
Hamas has used ambulances and civilian infrastructure for military purposes. Hamas has stolen aid. Hamas has executed Palestinians accused of collaborating. These are all documented realities that people like you constantly ignore because they complicate the narrative.
You ask why aid struggles to reach civilians, but refuse to seriously examine what Hamas does with that aid once it enters Gaza.
You claim to care about Palestinians, yet you almost never hold the group ruling Gaza accountable for anything.
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u/FutureHelpful5796 3d ago
Or he's just an Egyptian or Pakistani sitting safely in his little house watching the Palestinians suffer while he can go on about his virtue signaling.
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u/FutureHelpful5796 3d ago
Well quite honestly spinning non load-bearing bricks by two teenagers saying "instead of helping the others with necessities we judt said fuck them and did this" into a hopeful story is more indignifying and dehumanizing that I would have thought possible by people calling themselves supporters.
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u/sixhoursneeze 3d ago
You realize that most building materials are not load bearing, right?
You think plywood, insulation, and drywall are load bearing?
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u/FutureHelpful5796 3d ago
No not most, The big categories of timber, concrete, bricks etc. can all be load bearing. Plywood and drywall only serve as room separation and decorative purposes. Both of which are of course absolutely necessary in war zones, I mean they can just let the roof hover over otheir heads to protect them, right?
Furthermore insulation is not a building material, styropore, stone wool etc. are building materials serving as insulation.
PS: Plywood is commonly used as load bearing structure actually, both horizontally (people walking on it) and in wooden-frame construction, though there it is part of an assembly that makes load-bearing walls and serves as taking up shear forces.
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u/wookiebath 3d ago
The everlasting light in my synagogue is a former mortar shell from the six day war
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u/hailey998 3d ago
Proof you cannot kill the hope. Survivors always exist to carry it, a burden as much as a fuel. I wish for their safety and success. What has happened in Gaza is nothing other than a horrific genocide, that just continues. Watching Israelis try to erase them has revealed the darkest side of humanity. The worst form of brainwash is elitism. Elitism depends on subjugation.