World Bank, CDR Plan to Pollute Air, Soil, Water

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

WORLD BANK, CDR PLAN TO POLLUTE AIR, 
SOIL AND WATER
Lebanon must refuse granting land for polluting 
waste incinerator, landfill

Beirut,  10 January 1996 - The World Bank and the 
Lebanese Council for Development and 
Reconstruction (CDR) want to pollute air, soil and 
land by setting up a waste incinerator and a landfill in  the
northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, the Greenpeace 
Mediterranean office charged today.

The international environmental organisation 
appealed to the governor of North Lebanon, Khalil 
al-Hindi, and to Tripoli Mayor Sami Minqara to 
refuse granting land for these polluting plans that will  pose
a serious threat to people's health and the 
environment.

World Bank and CDR representatives visited Tripoli 
yesterday to win the support of al-Hindi for a waste 
incinerator, a landfill and a composting pant in this 
northern city. The delegation asked for at least 
150,000 m3 of land to realize the plan. (1) 

Greenpeace urges the World Bank, which is funding 
these polluting plans, and CDR President Nabil al-
Jisr to drop all incineration and landfilling plans. (2)  The
solution to Lebanon waste crisis lies in 
implementing a strategy based on waste reduction, 
separation at source and then recycling.
 
"It is a myth to believe that by digging a hole in the 
ground one can dump waste in it and then forget," 
said in Beirut Fouad Hamdan, Lebanon campaigner 
of the Greenpeace Mediterranean Office.

"Toxic substances in landfills strike back in the form 
of leachate, that is toxic fluid leaking into ground 
water reservoirs. Plastic sheetings and concrete 
layers underneath are useless because they will all 
eventually deteriorate and crack," he said. "Waste 
incinerators emit toxic emissions and produce 
contaminated ash - even high-tech ones.".

More than 4,000 tons of household waste are 
produced in Lebanon every day. They end in dumps 
all along the Mediterranean coast, in the mountains 
and in the Beqaa valley. Lebanon's industrial waste, 
more than 326,000 tons per year, is mixed with the 
household waste or pumped in the sewage system. 
The solution to this is clean production in all 
industrial processes.

All hospitals generate about 650 tons of hazardous 
waste every year. This waste is currently mixed with 
household waste and ends in dumps all over the 
country like the ones in Borj-Hammud in Beirut or 
near Zahle in the Beqaa valley. Daily fires there due 
to methane gas development also lead to the 
emissions of toxic heavy metals, dioxins and furans. 

"Lebanon is drowning in its waste, and all what the 
CDR plans is to dump the waste problem on future 
generations," said Hamdan. "We already have 
enough `Borj-Hammuds' all over the country and 
two polluting incinerators in Beirut."

"Instead of polluting the air, soils and water with 
incineration and landfilling, the CDR must formulate 
concepts to radically reduce hazardous wastes like 
plastics, separate waste in households and establish a 
recycling infrastructure," he concluded.


For more information please call in Beirut Fouad 
Hamdan, ++961-1-785665, mobile ++961-3-756429, 
or Executive Director Dr. Mario Damato in Malta, 
++356-667167. emails: 
gp.med@cyberia.net.lb
gpmedite@diala.greenpeace.org


NOTES:

1. Last January, the Lebanese government passed an 
"emergency plan" to close down Beirut's huge 
coastal waste dump in Borj-Hammud next June. This 
plan is a first step in the right direction. However, it 
focuses only on closing down Borj-Hammud and 
omits to address a national waste management 
strategy based on reducing, reusing, separating at 
source and then recycling waste. The plan does not 
say when Beirut's two polluting waste incinerators in 
Amrusieh and Qarantina will be closed. It considers 
landfilling waste in unknown places. 

The government's "emergency plan" envisages to 
collect and separate the 1,800 tons of household 
waste in Beirut and sort it at sites in Amrusieh and 
Qarantina. Ten per cent would be separated for 
recycling, 50 per cent composted and 30 per cent 
incinerated and landfilled. 10 per cent of rejected 
waste mixed with partly combusted waste from the 
two incinerators as well as ash would be landfilled.

Greenpeace believes that the CDR is trying to 
implement similar plans all over Lebanon.

(2) The CDR is a sort of super ministry that controls 
the budget of most reconstruction plans of post-war 
Lebanon, including the waste management issue.

END