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BEIRUT (Reuters) – In recent months, Nadima Yazbeck had an unpleasant smell of crawling trash in her store.
On a plastic chair in front of his little store, Yazbek, 66, told AFP: "A smell full of bacteria, any shit … they have to find a solution."
"Of course, it affects my job.There are a lot of flies, I can not get out of the fridge and I use antiretroviral drugs all the time."
In 2015, Lebanon experienced a waste crisis that resulted in garbage accumulation on the streets of Beirut and a smell of odor, without the government finding a lasting solution. It has also opened two new dumps in Bourj Hammoud, where Yazbek lives, and on the Costa Brava coast, near the airport south of the capital. .
In recent months, as the waste has gradually accumulated and decomposed, the smell of the suburbs of Beirut has been the first to be inhaled by 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 in July an expert to consider the issue of odors, its causes and its elimination.
"The smell is caused by sewage, garbage and organic waste," said Amy Manasa, a Franco-Lebanese expert in agricultural engineering.
The smell is due to sewage, garbage and 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 scrap? There is no Lebanese to blame?"
– Remove only odors
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 the proportion of hydrogen sulphate, a kind of odorous gas, in the air of Burj Hammoud.
The researchers found that the report was higher than expected, said Mikkeli Seton, an expert on waste and water at the university.
In 2018, a study conducted in northern China showed that people, especially children, living near burial sites are more susceptible to the disease because of an immunodeficiency or anemia. 39, a dysfunction of the lungs, the latter being mainly due to the emission of hydrogen sulfide.
Seton says that eliminating odors is not a sustainable solution.
"What these words say to the world and to the people of Beirut is that it is urgent to find other ways to manage the waste crisis."
Lebanon, a country with limited resources, suffers from a lack of basic services, poor infrastructure and an urgent need for rehabilitation. In 2015, major events took place to protest the waste crisis in Beirut.
Although the street movement has since fallen, the Lebanese are highly critical of politicians and hold them responsible for their inability to handle the case, due to corruption in state institutions.
"Our political team is not working, they are all liars and nuns," said Ndima Yazbek.
Minasa insists that the solution he proposes 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.
However, he believes that the solution "is not to be sprayed forever," especially that the solution must be sprayed 24 hours a day to achieve a result.
The basic solution, according to him, is to sort waste in houses, in order to reduce the quantities reaching landfills.
– lack of political will
Environmental experts say 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.
Mr Grizzati, who took office in January, presented a plan to encourage the Lebanese to sort their waste and set up a new fertilizer production site near the airport in 2020, he said in an interview with an economic magazine published in July.
According to Gressati, one of the "reasonable options" is to expand the Burj Hammoud landfill, 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 officials have found a solution to the crisis, especially since they have decided to end the job of monitoring the quality of air within the framework of the project. a budget for 2019.
Claude Gabr, of the Talaat Reitkm movement who led the 2015 protests, condemns officials who seek only their own business interests and the lack of real political will to find alternative solutions.
Jabr, who lives in the Burj Hammoud area, makes fun of Misana's solution, saying, "As if one of us was sitting in a place that smelled of perfume and spilled only perfume."
"We have the energy and know-how to produce junk food (…) and reuse it as raw material."
"Why can not we win from them in a way that does not harm the environment?
(AFP)
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