This step comes within the “Tadwir” project, funded by the European Union and implemented by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), to support the capabilities of the municipalities and facilities concerned and improve waste collection, transportation and treatment services.
During her tour of the facilities and her meeting with the mayors, Minister Al-Zein stressed that “we are all working hard, in a race against time, scarcity of funding, and the accumulation of root problems, to avoid waste crises in various regions, and to put this file on the path to sustainable solutions after the completion of basic reforms,” stressing that “this equipment does not constitute a single solution to the waste crisis, but it enhances the ability of facilities and municipalities to perform their tasks, in facilities whose operational capacity has been damaged, to varying degrees, by Successive crises over the past years, which in some cases led to a noticeable decline in performance and effectiveness.”
Al-Zein explained that “developing waste management requires broader cooperation to work on more than one path at the same time:
– Improving the performance of sorting plants, enhancing sorting from the source, and improving landfill operations and restricting them to exhaust.
– Enabling municipalities to benefit from the new laws in a way that enhances their independence in managing collection and transportation operations.
– Cooperating with the National Solid Waste Management Authority to develop alternative solutions for facilities that have exhausted their capacity.
– Strengthening local control over the entities operating the facilities to ensure the efficiency of sorting and treatment operations and reduce the risks of fires in landfills, whether resulting from operational malfunctions or intentional actions.”
In Jeb Jenin, Al-Zein confirmed “securing the necessary financing from the World Bank to establish a new landfill after the current landfill reached its capacity and its closure and rehabilitation became an urgent need.”
In Zahle, during the delivery of the equipment and the tour inside the sorting facility, Al-Zein was briefed on what is being implemented through the project, especially the development of the sorting plant and adding a line to produce alternative fuel from waste, and the municipality’s plan to proceed with sorting from the source. It also followed up on the file of the chemicals that were transferred to the facility campuses, confirming the Ministry’s request from the Electricité du Liban to recover these materials, in light of the municipality’s refusal to bury them even after treating them, and working to find an alternative solution in accordance with the laws and regulations.
In Baalbek, before handing over the equipment and during a visit to the sorting plant and the landfill and inspecting the combustion in one of the landfill cells, Al-Zein once again confirmed that the file had been referred to the Environmental Public Prosecutor to investigate its circumstances, with the technical solution related to the discharge of gases being initiated, based on the technical inspection report prepared recently by the Ministry of the Environment.
The distribution of this equipment comes within the framework of a broader goal: more efficient facilities, more capable municipalities, better sorting at the source, and a more sustainable waste system that reduces what is sent to landfills and limits its environmental impacts.
