has led to uncontrolled burning and dumping. Both of these have the potential to pollute the environment with airborne toxins or through chemicals seeping into the soil and groundwater resources. As the war continues and poverty increases, more people are looking through the waste to find food, construction materials, or items that can be sold. Municipal, medical, and hazardous waste are being mixed because of this collapse, which makes handling the waste especially dangerous. The excess waste can also promote the spread of diseases and parasites throughout the country. People have started to create their own waste programs alongside those in place by the UNDP, ICRC, and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. Ministry of Environmental Affairs The Ministry of Environmental Affairs is led by State Minister Nazira Farah Sarkis. It was established in 1991, and is responsible for national policy making and for coordinating environmental activities and the adoption of environmental legislation and regulations. The Ministry of Environmental Affairs has made numerous efforts to reverse the environmental issues that were inflected prior to the war such as Law No. 50 created in 2002. It was the Environmental Protection Law which was to protect the environment sector such as forestry, agriculture, water, fisheries. However, the Assad government may have funded these plans too late for the Ministry of Environment to make major improvements. By the time they began their plans, the uprising had irrupted and not long after, the civil war. Sustainable Development Plan Before the UN Sustainable Development Plan was initiated, there were several conferences conducted working towards improving the environment in Syria. In 1992, within the Environment and Development Conference, there were conferences that were conducted. The Earth Summit for Environment and Development focused on combatting desertification, biodiversity, and climate change. Within the Environment and Development Conferences covered several other topics such as poverty, development, environment protection, human rights, good governance, women empowerment, children and youth issues. In 2002, the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) conference was conducted. The summit planned the sustainable action plan, which would be renewed in the United Nation's conference on sustainable development in 2012. The WSSD was focused on implementing the policies to work towards a more sustainable Syria. The Ministry of Environmental Affairs implemented the State Five-Year Plan while focusing on poverty, quality of life, education, health, women empowerment, and environment protection. Prior to the 2011 uprising, the Ministry was determined to