Ten days ago, we faced, as the Lebanese civil society with the Lebanese Ministry of Environment, during the Economic and Social Solutions Forum for the Management of a Sustainable Environment, in Tunisia, in a debate about the incinerators option, and ended with 76% of the audience rejecting the incinerators…
On 27 April, a scientific conference was organized in Beirut, on the solid wastes strategy, with the presence of foreign experts, and under the auspices of the Ministry of Environment and the presence of the Ministry of Administrative Development and the Council for Development and Reconstruction.
The surprise was the consensus of the scientific opinions, which were in conformity with the international wastes pyramid, which excludes landfills and incinerators, and gives priority to the reduction, re-usage, recycling, and heat recovery, through fuel manufacturing from wastes of high calorific value and which are non-recyclable wastes, as Europe abandons the incineration, and is moving step by step towards producing alternative fuel.
Also, the presence of the Association of the Lebanese Industrialists, headed by Dr. Fadi Jamil, who is also the chairman of factory that recycles paper and manufactures cardboard, was unique, especially when he defended the principle of sorting and recycling, and refused incinerators which waste the primary resources upon which the recycling industries that create 7,000 jobs in Lebanon, rely on.
However, the day began with the official parties’ words, which supported the incinerators, with the exception of the Consultant of the Minister of Administrative Development.
Who will win?
Will the civil society, along with the experts and industrialists be able to reach an organized pressure, which gives a result that saves the environment from pollution caused by wastes, and convinces the extended parliament of the issuance of a modern environmental waste law, and returns the ball to the municipalities’ court, which benefit from collecting wastes and monitoring the quantities and costs upon processing, along with promoting the best clean environmental technologies that are used globally, and which suit Lebanon’s environment?
Or will we succumb to the mood of the ministers and their priorities and their regional, sectarian and political interests?
Carthage and Beirut are two great Phoenician cities; where we will start the green revolution from, for a planet ruled by the elite people, which will restore the Mediterranean’s spring, which longs for peace, safety and cleanliness.
