Beirut, the ground beneath our feet

A climate emergency initiative in Beirut offers important lessons for waste management and community organisation globally

By Nikolett Puskas

Beirut triggers distinct thoughts in everybody. It is a truly vital city at its heart, thanks to its people, its fluidity and its many informal systems.

The way in which the urban landscape evolved here is extremely rich and intricate, due especially to the impact of the Lebanese civil war and the many displaced people that the country is hosting. When I look at pictures of the old Beirut, I feel heartache for the tram that used to operate, for the old villas, the greenery, the seashore and for the time when there was a flourishing river.

Today’s landscape is intensely dense, full of high-rise buildings and in its most crowded area, Burj Hammoud (62,500 inhabitants/km 2 , more than three times the Beirut-average 1 ) it can be difficult to see the sky, unless going up to a rooftop. There is an extreme duality here since the end of the civil war, one of decaying buildings and poverty, and the other of absolute luxury. Despite the two extremes, recent headlines and conversations with local people justify the conclusion that the ground beneath all our feet here is a ‘garbage mountain’. The waste crisis peaked in 2015 and has not been properly addressed ever since. It is also a health crisis, not only is the soil and thus groundwater polluted, but it is hazardous to swim in the sea and because it is still common practise also to burn waste, the air is dangerously polluted.

Beirut Vista

© Nikolett Puskas

It is in this context that I am conducting fieldwork for my PhD at University College London’s (UCL) Institute for Global Prosperity (IGP) and a member of the RELIEF Centre 2 under Professor Henrietta Moore’s supervision, locally working with Professor Yaser Abunnasr at the American University of Beirut’s (AUB) Department of Landscape Design and Ecosystem Management. Working with people in the Nor Marash neighbourhood in Bourj Hammoud, the first step has been to co-define what makes ‘the good life’ and what contributes to wellbeing in the context of public spaces in the neighbourhood, whilst voting on the most pressing infrastructural topic (amongst waste, water, energy and food). 62 per cent of those consulted voted that it was waste, which is unsurprising in light of the on-going waste crisis and especially since people here are living at the heart of it. The Bourj Hammoud landfill reached its capacity this summer and was supposed to be closed down, however the government is planning to extend it as a temporary solution.

On the other side, the neighbourhood is bordered by the Beirut River, which today is a combination of sludge and waste. Besides the visual impact, people are struck by the unimaginable smell emanating from all the different waste. Waste is a global challenge and Lebanon is one of the countries where this has already become completely problematic due to the lack of a comprehensive waste management plan, appropriate regulation or legislation; decent knowledge transfer and a failure to recognise the impact of the climate emergency.

Moreover, according to AUB research 3 , only 10-12 per cent of the country’s overall waste could not be recycled or composted, whilst the reality is that about 60 per cent of waste is generated in Beirut and Mount Lebanon – of which over 85 per cent is going to landfill. Composting is a particularly interesting subject due to the excellent climatic conditions here. This rather bleak outline offers the opportunity for Lebanese creativity and eagerness to act towards reaching the 10 per cent of waste that cannot be recycled. In the absence of high-level action to address the issue, a growing number of more local initiatives are in place for both recycling and composting. These initiatives are led by NGOs and concerned individuals.

For example Live Love Recycle has its own app for pick-up, which they do via e-bikes, providing a tailored and convenient service. Ziad Abi Chaker is perhaps the most wellknown Lebanese activist in the area of waste management. He installed recycling islands Beirut-wide, creates Eco-Boards and furniture from plastic waste, recycles glass (which is saving the jobs of the last six glassblowers of Lebanon), whilst also working with composting and vertical green walls. Another initiative by Joslin Kehdy pays particular attention to a seemingly tiny item of rubbish, which in reality is also a substantial contributor to pollution: the cigarette butt. They make surfboards out of them! Spreading knowledge and information on all these initiatives is essential.

Beirut river today, in dry season

© Nikolett Puskas

My PhD is based on action research via collaboration with various actors, from local people in a neighbourhood to the municipality and existing initiatives such as entrepreneurs, NGOs, innovators and ‘experts’). The research is tackling issues defined by the people who are users of the particular public space, so they can have a sense of ownership and responsibility. It is a way to map and connect the actors, explore possible paths to bridge the bottom-up with the top-down and to facilitate informal learning, so people are enabled to understand better what actions are they capable of taking in order to enhance their built environment.

The next step is a co-design workshop in collaboration with the FastForward2030 Lebanon network to come up with local naturebased solutions to waste-related challenges, as both this network and my research are addressing a number of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The outcomes will feed in to a physical game being co-developed with a Lebanese artist collective, to be taken back to the streets of Nor Marash and played with local people, as a facilitator tool to learn by play.

Focusing on waste, exploring causes of pollution and its effects on both our physical and mental wellbeing, how it impacts people on an individual, family, community and collective level are all crucially important to collectively reduce, reuse, recycle and compost, for example, We can thus learn how to transform a burden (i.e. organic ‘waste’) into an asset (i.e. fertiliser). There needs to be a deeper understanding, as well as a collaboratively developed narrative, one which holds the transformative power of turning the bleak landscape into a scene of opportunities and possibilities.

People collecting and sorting waste daily at Martyr Square

© Nikolett Puskas

Conducting research in the real world always has uncertainties and currently my fieldwork is paused due to the thawra (revolution), which started on 17th October of this year. Yet the amazing energy and inspiring initiatives emerging from it offer me opportunities for critical reflection and analysis. Many of us had micro-scale initiatives of simply bringing our own gloves and bin bags and just starting to collect all the trash, which was accumulating on the streets in great volumes.

This is a very simple act at individual level, showing care for our immediate environment. Under the umbrella, resources and organization of Recycle Lebanon, this grew into a full-scale daily operation of collection and sorting at Martyr’s Square, where hundreds of people turned up at 8 am every morning, including families with children. This is an example the whole world can and should learn from. Especially since, according to Greenpeace, during a mere 33 days people managed to recycle an amount almost equal to what has ever been recycled in the country. 4 Here is a lesson to all who ever wonder if we as individuals can have an impact.

The recycling initiative at Martyr’s Square then mushroomed into a group of tents establishing a circular economy hub, Regenerate Lebanon. Built block-by-block, they cover and address a growing range of crucial issues for a regenerative future. Today, besides the self-organised waste management, there is a zero-waste food kitchen providing free meals daily, free drinking water via UV filtering, green energy from solar panels and bicycle power, a living green wall and a growing number of native plants potted around aiming to create urban micro-forests. All of this is realised through individual donations and volunteering. The extreme conditions in Lebanon triggered the longest on-going protest of people, which seems to be an incubator of initiatives growing faster than ever before and achieving a great impact.

This tale should remind us all that it is people that make places and we always have the power of doing something both in our individual as well as professional capacities, to contribute to a better environment and a better future. In the alarming era of climate emergency, Lebanon is showing the world good practice in how to act upon certain pressing challenges and do it fast – for we do not have much time left to weave our transformative narrative.

Nikolett Puskas is a PhD candidate at the Institute for Global Prosperity and holds an MSc in leadership for global sustainable cities, an MA in sustainable design and a BSc in light industrial engineering.