Divers plunge below the surface, scuba tanks on their backs and nets in hand, but what they are looking for under the ocean surface is not treasure, it is trash.
The group is conducting a clean-up below the waves, one of many initiatives emerging from Lebanon’s civil society and private sector in response to the government’s failure to address a long-running garbage crisis.
The dive, off the town of Tabarja, 25km north of Beirut, proved fruitful: The divers emerged with nets full of plastic and glass bottles, rusted drink and food cans, and even tires, as a few swimmers nearby looked on bemused.
Photo: AFP
“What we saw down there, it makes your heart hurt,” said Christian Nader, a student.
The event was organized by Live Love Beirut, a group of Lebanese working to promote a positive image of their nation, who said that more than 100 divers joined clean-ups at eight sites over two days.
“It’s sad; it’s our sea. There should be awareness campaigns, the state should help us clean,” Nader said.
However, Lebanon’s government has proved serially unable to address the nation’s garbage crisis, which reached catastrophic proportions in the summer of 2015.
Mountains of trash piled up in the streets of Beirut and its surroundings after the nation’s largest dump closed down. The site had been years overdue for closure and the government had pledged to find an alternative before it was shuttered, but failed to do so in time.
Experts warn the scenario could soon be repeated thanks to the government’s continued failure to adopt a comprehensive waste management strategy, even as the nation produces 6,000 tonnes of refuse a day.
In response to the 2015 crisis and the mass demonstrations it provoked, the government in March last year approved a “temporary” plan to reopen two dumps in the Beirut area.
However, the massive backlog created by months of accumulating and uncollected trash meant the two sites quickly reached capacity.
Authorities are examining the possibility of expanding the sites.
“The government must start to think seriously about lasting solutions and start putting them in place, even if it’s little by little,” said Lama Bashour, head of the Ecocentra environmental consultancy.
Like many experts, she emphasized the importance of “sorting and recycling” waste.
EU funds have helped pay for several sorting and composting facilities in Lebanon, but there are still more than 900 unlicensed dumps nationwide, according to an official study.
“The government should first of all have a strategy,” waste management expert Farouk Merhebi said. “By 1997, it was an emergency plan. Today we are in 2017, and we are still in an emergency plan. So we are reacting, we don’t plan for the future.”
He said the failure to produce a proper strategy had dire consequences.
“Most of the municipalities burn their waste,” he said.
Despite the large quantity of recyclable material being deposed of each day, just 15 percent is actually recycled, a source with knowledge of the sector said.
The government is reportedly studying a plan that would seek to decrease waste and boost recycling, something that Ziad Abi Chaker of the company Cedar Environmental has long called for.
Founded in the late 1990s, Abi Chaker’s firm now runs eight sorting centers across Lebanon, including one in the forested peaks of Mount Lebanon’s Beit Meri.
In the large metal warehouse, workers sort in a chain, taking apart blue and black garbage bags and pulling out recyclables.
The company says it sorts 80 tonnes a day at its facilities, sending reusable items on to recycling factories.
“We’ve proved that the concept of zero waste, in a decentralized framework, can succeed,” Abi Chaker said.
Elsewhere, attempts to tackle the waste crisis have been less of a success story.
In the southern seaside town of Sidon, a mountain of smelly trash has appeared on the shore, despite the presence of a new waste management facility.
The mountain is made up of what is known as “residues” that can neither be recycled nor composted and ordinarily should be placed in a sanitary landfill.
However, no such landfill is available, so the leftovers are piling up on the facility’s site, right next to the water’s edge.
The municipality says it is planning to build a landfill to address the mountain, now several meters high.
In the meantime, residents simply have to put up with the stink.
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