Aley – El Risala neighborhood, as a model There’s no dispute that civil initiatives, have exceeded many steps taken by the government to mitigate the waste crisis invading our neighborhoods, streets and beaches. In this article greenarea sheds light on an example of a small district in Aley, mount Lebanon, where active civilians have started an initiative to mitigate the growing waste crisis, in a model that is worthy of mentioning that could be followed in the other districts of Aley and villages and cities all over Lebanon. Jihan Chehayeb, a civil activist and one of the founding members of the committee of El Rissala neighborhood, said: “we formed this committee as representatives from 5 residences, 10 years ago, and now we’re nearly 50 in the committee, and backed by most residents in the neighborhood, including elderly , women, men, as well as children, and with whatever any of us can contribute to this neighborhood in monetary or effort terms”. And she added “what brings us together is the infinite awareness, cooperation and the will to change to the best, so as to improve our community; and this love we feel towards each other, and towards our neighborhood and city, and the drive to bring a positive impact in all aspects especially concerning the environment is what made us succeed and prosper”. And she added that “Mr. Zuheir Abou Mattar for example, contributed with stickers to be put on containers to sort the waste at source, as well as flyers and we managed with our budget to design posters to spread the awareness concerning the issue of sorting”. Sanaa Chehayeb commented, “When we first started our committee with the goal to beautify our neighborhood. And with a contribution of 10 $ we managed to plant the main circle in the neighborhood with ornamental trees and flowers and to employ a worker to trim trees and clean the streets. In the beginning some people, argued that our work should be done by the municipality, but the results we made, induced most of the residents to contribute and participate. The municipality helped us and encouraged our efforts by providing us with workers to help ] and by lifting debris and stalled cars from the main square of the neighborhood”. The head of the Women’s Union, Hadia Chehayeb, said “I am one of the members of the managing committee, we started by making a map of the neighborhood which includes 48 buildings with minimum 500 person per building, and collecting data, which were processed by a 16 year old student Kamil Chehayeb and Miss Jihan Chehayeb as well as designing the logo of the committee and stickers, and we followed this process by organizing our steps to insure success”. She added: “The responsiveness to our initiative I could say, is so evident because when people saw the progress and the results we did, they followed willingly”. Nabila Ghazal commented that “everyone is participating and hopefully that they’ll follow instructions of sorting at source to make this step as successful as we hope”. Amal Fakih said,” our main goal is to convert this neighborhood to be one of the finest neighborhoods, not only in the city of Aley but in Lebanon and as a model for others to follow “. The Municipality of Aley backs these initiatives The municipality of Aley joined in this initiative under the directions of Mr. Wajdi Mrad the Mayor of the municipality, represented in this activity by a team headed by the member of the environmental committee of the municipality of Aley, Fadi Chehayeb, who answered a question by greenarea about the organic matter that is produced,”unfortunately, in the mean time, and concerning organic matter waste, we don’t have solutions for the accumulated quantities, though we’re trying to, by finding a land, as well as we contacted Dr. Jabour Jabour, a Lebanese expert who invented a digester so as to produce a sustainable solution of the organic matter and converting them into compost, but these equipments are expensive and we’re waiting for the government to implement the plan of Minister Chehayeb and provide us with the funds from the cellular and Sukleen for the municipality, so as to finance such projects”. And he added “this special digester costs about 500.000 dollars, and to provide this sum, and since any of the transactions involving large amounts of funding, require time and a certain hierarchy including the approval of the District Commissioner (Kaemmakam القائمقام) and the State Consultative Council(مجلس شورى الدولة) . However, a special location for recycling companies to collect the other solid wastes including carton, paper, glass, wood and metals has been designated “. When asked about the decentralization that has been discussed in this matter, he answered that, “we were not formally informed concerning, so as we can be free to go forward with our sustainable projects or reach the solutions concerning this crisis and other projects in the municipality ” and he pointed that “the sum that Sukleen receives for its services is 1.200.000 US dollars, and this sum can help us pay for projects concerning the growing problem of accumulated waste, including the equipments for a factory from Brasil that can convert the trash into methane gas, fuel oil and solid carbon so as we can produce electricity, and this plant costs about 1.500.000 US dollars and so we can convert the wastes from a problem into a sustainable project”. 
