After years of over dumping past the capacity of the landfill site in Naameh in Lebanon, the site was officially closed in July 2015, signaling the beginning of the garbage crisis in Lebanon.
With limited resources and limited alternatives for sanitary disposal of waste, there has been an increase in uncontrolled dumping of garbage all over the country. The health and environmental impacts of this are severe: increased vectors spreading diseases and pollution of waterways with leachate and fecal contamination from waste.
A mountain of solid waste has been created
One area most at risk is Saint Simon, a densely populated slum on the shore south of Beirut, home to over 800 vulnerable Syrian and Lebanese families. These families live in poor quality shelters, with limited or no public services such as water supply, sewerage or garbage collection and are at risk of flooding of houses and streets from both sewerage, storm and seawater. With the ongoing crisis, the solid waste in the neighborhood is now dumped at a site on the sand, where a mountain of solid waste has been created.
After reports of increased health issues due to the solid waste crisis, ACTED teams conducted a health assessment with a local team of doctors to determine the direct impact of the crisis on children in the neighborhood, finding that there has been a rapid increase in skin diseases and chronic diarrhea.
65% decrease of rubbish sent to landfill
In coordination with the local authorities, ACTED is mobilizing the community for a cleanup day to remove the garbage that is causing a health risk to the community. To ensure longer term solutions, ACTED teams have been holding awareness sessions with families and children, with the help of Smurf, promoting sorting, recycling and simple solutions to decrease household waste, ultimately decreasing the volume sent to landfill by up to 65%. Our teams also link the neighborhood to recycled waste buyers in the area.