Beirut Waste Dump Needs Rubble to Avoid Disaaster

["Greenbase" <greenbas@gb.greenpeace.org>]

BEIRUT WASTE DUMP NEEDS RUBBLE 
TO AVOID DISASTER
 
Beirut, 24 February 1997 - Uncontrollable fires could 
take place in Beirut's huge waste dump in Borj-
Hammud, and it could brake up and cause an 
ecological disaster in the Mediterranean Sea because 
authorities banned the entry of rubble two days ago..
 
The Greenpeace Mediterranean Office said that more 
than 150 trucks full of waste waited many hours this 
morning before they could dump their load in Borj-
Hammud because trucks got stuck in the wet soil 
mixed with waste. Rubble to strengthen the roads 
were missing.
 
Yesterday, fires broke out in Borj-Hammud and in 
the nearby Qarantina waste dump. Black toxic smoke 
billowed over Beirut. Qarantina was closed in 1991, 
but since then Borj-Hammud has been receiving 
some 2,000 tonnes of wastes per day from the 
Greater Beirut Area.
 
"The authorities made a grave mistake when they 
forbid the dumping of rubble in Borj-Hammud while 
waste was still being dumped there," said in Borj-
Hammud Fouad Hamdan, Greenpeace Mediterranean 
Campaigner. "The rubble is needed to minimize the 
risk of fires, to strengthen the roads for the trucks 
and to protect the dump from sea storms."
 
"The Borj-Hammud dump, one of the largest coastal 
dump in the world, needs some 3,000 square meters 
of rubble every day to protect it from sea storms. A 
major storm could brake parts of it and disperse 
millions of tons of waste all over the Mediterranean 
Sea and pollute the coats of Lebanon, Cyprus, Syria, 
Turkey and elsewhere," he said.
 
Greenpeace urges the Council for Development and 
Reconstruction (CDR) and the Environment Ministry 
to revert their decision. The use of rubble must be 
allowed until the dump is closed in line with a plan to 
start separating, composting and recycling waste 
starting next June.
 
The daily tragedy in Borj-Hammud is a warning to 
the CDR and the Environment Ministry that 
Lebanon's waste crisis can only be solved with a 
national strategy based on reducing , reusing and 
then recycling waste.
 
For more information please call in Borj-Hammud 
Fouad Hamdan, ++961-3-756429.
 
ATTENTION EDITORS: The Borj-Hammud dump 
receives not only household waste but also tons of 
hazardous hospital and toxic industrial waste every 
day. The CDR is a sort of super ministry that 
finances and controls all major official projects in 
Lebanon. The CDR is also responsible for the dumps 
and the country's two waste incinerators in the Beirut 
districts of Qarantina and Amrusieh. Greenpeace 
demands that these two polluting plants be closed.
 
UPDATE: Pressed by Greenpeace to solve the 
problem, Environment Minister Akram Shuhayeb 
told us that the decision to ban rubble from entering 
Borj-Hammud will be canceled during a cabinet 
meeting on 26 February.