Waste management plant in Lebanon receives officials at its site. An official delegation of Lebanon visited a “waste sorting plant” which is located in the southern Lebanon. During the visit, the authorities proposed a plan to expand the plant in order to “improve its efficiency”. According to MP as well as the “caretaker Minister of State for Administrative Development”, Inaya Ezzeddine, the present system is not a sustainable one.
The said waste management plant positioned in the “town of Ain Baal”, runs on the funds received from the “United States Agency for International Development”, whereby the facility, at present, receives “more waste” than it has the capacity to process. Therefore, a plan expand the sorting plant is being looked into so that the burden of extra waste can be mitigated at the plant site.
The cost of expanding the waste management plant is going to be around “$3 million” and it has been informed that the World Bank will be sponsoring the same and the “Council for Development and Reconstruction” will overlook the implementation part.
The collecting area for the waste management plant could generate trash up to “300 tons”, while the plant is only equipped to process around “150 tons” and converts the same mostly into compost. Although, the CDR thinks that the present number is “still too high”. In the words of the “Union of Municipalities of Tyre” Head, Hassan Dabouq:
“There are 300 tons of waste produced every day in Tyre and its surrounding towns and camps”.
“The plant doesn’t have the capabilities to sort this much trash. There has to be an additional step taken before the trash arrives at the plant.”
Moreover, the proposed new plant will have the included features of “reducing, recycling and sorting the waste” before the arrival at the plant site, as Ezzeddine added:
“Trash is a product and through recovering its resources, we can create jobs”.
The group of authorities that went for the field visit at the plant consisted of “Ezzeddine, Dabouq and a CDR delegation” as they were joined by “environmental activists and civil society representatives”. The visit got the officials discussing about the plant’s “environmental ramifications”. Following her tour to the plant, Ezzeddine said:
“The environment is a whole and integrated system, not a laboratory or an extension [that can be removed or changed]”.
Furthermore, she also informed that the CDR will be taking the charge of setting up “consultation meetings” with Tyre along with the people from the region, wherein the new expansion plan will be explained while discussions regarding the “practical steps” to be taken will also take place. In Ezzeddine’s words:
“The environment is a [culture] and we need to change our relationship with it, to nourish it. It’s not the job of the state [to make us value the environment]”.
