Land is shaped by human activities – agricultural and industrial activities, construction of infrastructures and buildings, waste disposal and spreading, all of which can be vectors of soil contamination and environmental degradation. All these are threats to vital soil functions for human health, food production and water conservation. Land and soils usually have poor regeneration capacities: land degradation can be very quick (a few years or decades are enough), while soil formation and regeneration takes thousands of years.
More and more Lebanese municipalities are likely to face issues resulting from land degradation. In the aftermath of the civil war, back in 1975, Lebanon suffered an important amount of destructions, including at the environmental level. In 2015-2016, the country faced a major waste crisis. Despite the development of temporary waste collection and recycling solutions over the past years, public waste collection and recycling services remain irregular, while the amount of waste increases constantly, alongside with a significant population and urban growth. In Lebanon, populations increase while massively concentrating in urban areas, and municipalities are often unable to cope with the rising challenges. One of them is waste management.
Thinking solutions for waste-free municipalities
In the district of Akkar, in northern Lebanon, many municipalities seek ACTED’s support for solid waste management interventions. Akkar is one of the poorest districts of Lebanon, with more than half of its population living below the poverty line. Akkar district moreover hosts over 100,000 registered Syrian refugees (for 253,000 Lebanese inhabitants) who fled the conflict in neighboring Syria, bordered by some 50 villages of the Akkar district. The concentration of population in an already poor region makes it even more vulnerable and prone to food insecurity. Land degradation and the resulting consequences on food and water security are a reality faced by many municipalities, and it is now crucial to promote methodologies that foster landscape regeneration, including sustainable waste management techniques, but also sustainable production and resource management, food and nutrition security and enhanced resilience.
One of the first steps towards landscape regeneration is the implementation of comprehensive solid waste management interventions benefitting the whole community from an environmental, economic and social point of view. Active local community involvement is key to the success of such interventions, to improve long-term municipal performance and populations’ awareness in waste management and thus ensure long-term benefits and sustainability.
Nahr El Oustwan Union: An example of increased local community involvement in Akkar
After the Nahr El Oustwan union, one of the poorest of the Akkar district involving nine municipalities, expressed interest in becoming a leader for solid waste management in Akkar, ACTED teams organised discussions towards the implementation of sustainable waste management solutions. ACTED’s intervention first focused on the importance of upgrading the infrastructure for waste management, and on the promotion of the importance of sorting “at the source”, at household level. This is something already experimented by ACTED in the past with an innovative pilot project implemented in Nabaa and Bourj Hammoud municipalities, in Metn district, in 2015. To contribute to tackling the waste crisis, the ACTED Lebanon teams implemented an innovative app-based technology, through an ECHO and UNICEF-funded pilot project. In collaboration with municipalities ACTED equipped households with recycling bins carrying a specific barcode, and municipal workers with a software that enables to scan the barcode and track the bins to improve waste sorting. Through this system, households were incentivised to sort their waste and promote behavioral change. With a 65% decrease of waste, this pilot project has proven successful.
ACTED teams discussed this solution with the representatives of the Nahr El Oustwan union to develop a similar project for efficient solid waste management in Akkar. Capacity building activities implying local communities (both Lebanese and Syrian) on proper sorting of waste at household level, transfer of assets and training to local authorities and the implementation of the mobile app-based tracking system will altogether contribute to improving coordination between municipal and household practices, thus allowing communities to take ownership of their own solid waste management and municipalities to provide oversight for increased efficiency.
Sharing best practices, inspiring positive change
Bikfaya municipality, in Metn district, is a good example of sustainable waste management solutions in Lebanon. The municipality installed a waste management plant with sorting conveyors that enable to sort some eight tons of domestic waste a day from six different municipalities in Metn district. The municipality is also spreading educational messages to the population to explain that sorting practices start at home, and how this should be done.
All nine municipalities of the Nahr El Oustwan Union agreed to visit Bikfaya municipality to learn from their experience of the waste management plant and take new ideas. Discussions focused on how to best promote waste management, how to organise things to make the plant work in the most efficient way, and how to mobilise the communities so that they take an active role in the process of waste management. This visit to Bikfaya highlighted important lesson learnt and aspects to take into account, such as encouraging communities to engage in the process and sorting waste at home, and efficient management of the plant as well as waste management mechanisms at the municipality and union levels.
This experience shows that solutions exist, and encouraging and empowering municipalities and communities to take ownership of solid waste management at household, community and municipality levels can offer sustainable and durable solutions for waste management. By taking the lead against waste, communities and municipalities contribute to improving life and health conditions, to controlling and reducing the degradation of environmental conditions and to improving landscape regeneration capacities in Akkar, thus paving the way towards sustainable development in Lebanon.