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The Agence France-Presse has published a report on the problem of waste and odors in Beirut, highlighting the need to find other ways to manage the waste crisis and find quick solutions.
In recent months, Nadima Yazbek breathed in her shop an unpleasant smell, giving her control of the shit permanently and preventing her from working in the sale of manakish in the Bourj Hammoud area of northern Beirut.
On a plastic chair in front of his little shop, Yazbek, 66, told AFP: "The smell is full of bacteria, all shit … they should find a solution."
"Of course, it affects my work, there are a lot of flies, I can not get out of the fridge and I'm taking insect medicine all the time."
In 2015, Lebanon witnessed a waste crisis, which accumulated on the streets of Beirut and felt without the government finding a lasting solution, but opened two new dumps in Bourj Hammoud , where lives Yazbek, and on the beach of the Costa Brava, near the airport located south of the capital. .
In recent months, as garbage has gradually accumulated and degraded, the scent of the suburbs of Beirut has become the first scent for travelers arriving in Lebanon.
A few kilometers from the Burj Hammoud dump, locals sometimes avoid opening windows or sitting on their balconies.
Faced with the intensification of the crisis, the Ministry of the Environment asked an expert last July to consider the problem of odors, its causes and ways to get rid of them.
According to the French-Lebanese expert in agricultural engineering, Amy Manbada, the smell is caused by sewage, household waste and the decomposition of organic waste. His report was the subject of a wave of ridicule about the means of social communication, with some saying he did not find anything new, but said what the Lebanese know best. They also mocked his solution by applying a specific solution on waste to eliminate odors.
"An international expert to determine the source of the smell of garbage? Is there not a Lebanese who feels it?" Wrote one of them.
The problem is not limited to an unpleasant odor, but can also have health consequences. During the winter, researchers from the American University of Beirut measured hydrogen sulfide, a foul gas, in the air of the Borj Hammoud region. The researchers found that the rate was higher than expected, says academic expert Mikkeli Seton, adding that the elimination of odors is not a sustainable solution.
"What these smells say to the world and the people of Beirut is that it is urgent to find other ways to manage the waste crisis."
Menbada insists that his solution to eliminate the odor is temporary. A biological solution is being installed at two sites to clean the garbage trucks and spray them into the atmosphere of the Burj Hammoud area organic fertilizer conversion site. The main solution, he says, is to sort waste in homes, to reduce the number of landfills.
Environmental experts agree that half of the waste in Lebanon is made up of organic materials and could be better treated if they were sorted in homes before being dumped.
Lebanese Environment Minister Fadi Griissati said only eight percent of the waste was recycled in Lebanon. When he took office in January, he presented a plan to encourage the Lebanese to sort their waste and set up a new composting site near the airport in 2020, he said. during an interview last July. According to Jreissati, a "reasonable option" is to expand Burj Hammoud's burial site, but this involves the destruction of a nearby fishing port.
Lebanese ecologists opposed a project to create incinerators, which would increase pollution. Some doubt the seriousness with which the leaders decided to find a solution to the crisis, especially after having decided to stop the work in the observatories to determine the quality of the air within the framework of the budget of Austerity for 2019.
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