Solar energy leaves a mountain of deadly waste .. Sam went to kill the Lebanese

The lead batteries file in Lebanon grows as a precise mirror of a structural imbalance: a country that pushes society to push energy alternatives due to the network deficit, without building in parallel a policy to manage the life cycle of these alternatives. Thus, the “postponed inventory” in the solar energy batteries in homes, shops and farms multiply, then society spends its health and environmental costs in long, invisible installments.

The essence of the problem is not the “battery” in itself, but rather the logic of replacement without a system. When lead batteries are imported heavily to feed the decentralized energy market, the supply chain is not necessary with an organized regulatory recovery or treatment, inevitably consists of economic incentives for random rotation: high value, costly professional protection cost, and a rapid return of those who work outside the law. That is, the profit is concerned immediately, while the loss is deprived on the air, water and the health of the citizen. The World Health Organization stressed that “there is no safe level of bullets”, warning against its permanent impact on the growth of the children’s brain, its association with high blood pressure, low intelligence factor and behavior disorders.
According to the figures, about 33.4 thousand tons of bulletproof waste, and the quantity is expected to jump to 145.8 thousand tons by 2040 if the random system of collection and melting continues. The numbers alone are not worried; The import of lead batteries for solar systems has increased more than ten times between 2013 and 2022, which made it the dominant class in the home energy market, and in practice it means that the mountain mountain of waste awaits the moment when these batteries stop working, which is a moment that is quickly approaching due to repeated breakdowns and manufacturing poor.
Another study, warned of catastrophic pollution levels, as based on one of the samples monitored the presence of 39 grams of bullets per kilogram of site soil (the limit permitted by the World Health Organization is 0.4 g/kg), and 717 micrograms of lead per liter of wastewater, or three thousand five hundred times of the permissible global standard. The most dangerous is that pollution does not remain behind the walls of the workshop; Light mineral dust settles on adjacent surfaces, and finds its way to the lungs, travelers and small fields.
Economy of the scrap: a daily equal to a lot
Scrap dealers sell the retrieval bullets for about two dollars, which is equivalent to a full day’s wage for an irregular factor. This simple financial equation tempts many to enter the game: no license, no scrutiny, nor real customs complications, in light of the clear absence of the implementation of the Basel Agreement, which organizes the transfer of dangerous waste and ways to treat it. The result: an internal and external smuggling network that starts from small trucks entering the alleys at night, and ends with two lexers who collect bullets in shipping containers sent to larger ovens in neighboring countries, or re -sell it to local contracting factories that sanctify it in building materials.
At the institutional level, the file is chronic weakness in the governance of dangers … the powers of ministries, municipalities without tools measurement or enforcement, and customs crossings are treated with the battery as a commodity, not as a source of a dangerous later depletion. The absence of the national record of the batteries, from importing to consumption to the end of life, makes the investigation impossible, and turns any statistics to the best estimate that it is deficient.
Healthy, exposure to bullets is not an exhibited event that is treated with a quick anti -antagonist. Any partial approach, or an inspection campaign here, and the closure of a workshop there, only changes the geography of the activity. Worse, there is an additional risk on the horizon of moving to newer techniques (such as lehium-ion): replacing a danger by danger, as we will produce the story with a new title.
The state’s strategy – if it wants to be a state – does not start except by organizing the complete series, and according to experts, it is necessary to register mandatory for importers, distributors and the compounds, a deposit/environmental fee that is restored upon delivery, with a licensed and scrutinable refining intention, and a periodic health monitoring program in danger. Otherwise, the country remains in the instant firefighting circle of a fire that nourishes itself.
The way back from the abyss
The bottom line is that lead batteries in Lebanon are not an ordinary news that must go unnoticed .. It is a test of the extent of the public system’s ability to transform from the deficit management to risk management. Either the rules of play are now formulated, before the end of life waves reach their climax, or we keep the future hostage a handful of recycling operations, putting the citizen in the face of his health. The solution cannot be satisfied with preventing random burning. It is required, according to environmental experts, three urgent steps:
1- Approving the “expanded responsibility of the product” law, so that an environmental tax is imposed on each importer of carbonations from which the recovery process is funded.
2- Establishing at least one national refining center supervised by an independent supervisory body.
3- Launching free blood tests in the areas surrounding the workshops to monitor early pollution and compensate the affected people.
Until the state moves, the dugs of the used lead will remain “toxic gold” in the hands of hundreds of random workshops, selling pounds in dollars and buying contaminated food and a sick and future environment that is heavier in bullets from everything that poverty has one day. In the crowded neighborhoods that smoke weighing, no one needs a measuring device to understand that the air has become metal, and that the soil is poisoned under the feet of children running over the crust of the earth … and they do not know that it carries their slow death.