Trash Talk: The Possibility of Recycling Lebanon's Garbage

Via the outpost
 
 

In this episode we look at how to improve Lebanon's waste management cycle. First, we get insight on how garbage disposal In Lebanon works from Ziad Abi Chaker who is pioneering ways of turning municipal trash into treasure.

Then, we talk to the co-founder of F.E.R.N. International, Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli, an organization that is working with restaurants to improve their environmental impact by introducing a recycling system in their kitchens.

  

Music

Floyd the Locsmif - Welcome
Sesame Street - I Love Trash
The Simpsons - The Garbage Man Can
Ayo - Help Is Coming

The Cedar Environmental Waste Management Model

Interview at World Bank Headquarters in Washington, DC - September 2012

For more: Waste Expert Gives Lebanon Landfill Alternative

The Accidental Artist

The Accidental Artist

EARTHRISE: Trashing Lebanon (Al Jazeera English)

The following documentary was aired on Al Jazeera english as part of the EARTHRISE environmental show.

 

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It's All About PASSION - Bichaghaf Documentary

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Live Debris: A Trash Art Exhibition (circa 2008)

The show's slogan made from recuperated Poly-Styrene foam

 

 

Live Debris is an exhibition of art pieces made entirely from recuperated or recycled materials.  It aims to sensibilize citizens on the potential of trash as a renewable resource which should by all means never be burned or landfilled.

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18,333 Plastic Bags to Make a Conveyor Belt (Photo Blog)

More on Eco-Board

Le Plastique C'est Chic

In July 2012, internet articles and blogs talked about a house exhibited in Beirut made out of what was called Eco-Board panels. It was mentioned these boards were made in Lebanon out of 100% recycled plastic. But no other background information was available, neither on the internet nor on Cedar Environmental’s website – the company who manufactures these boards.
So ELHUB decided to take a closer look and headed to the mountains to meet a certain Ziad Abichaker, the contact person for Cedar Environmental.

Driving past Bickfaya towards Abou Mizane on a hot summer morning, we weren’t expecting anything much. What could Cedar Environmental be after all? Probably a group of self-righteous golden boys who quit banking in order to save the world. Or maybe some sort of public/private consortium spending away tax money on make-believe initiatives for a better future.

We could not have been further from the truth. [read more]

Radio Interview on Waste Management - Voix Du Liban (Arabic)

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In Lebanon: Building Resource Recovery Capabilities and a Prefab House

by HOWARD J. BROWN on JULY 17, 2012

At dMASS.net, we generally focus on resource input reductions rather than resource recovery or pollution and waste prevention for several reasons:

• Recycling and waste reduction efforts are widely reported elsewhere.
• Recycling often makes resource waste more economical. A variety of businesses and public entities become dependent on maintaining a flow of resource wastes in order to survive.
• Ultimately, the only way to dramatically reduce waste is to reduce resource use in the first place.

Yet there is no question that using resources mined above grade uses significantly fewer resources than manufacturing products with virgin resources. And once in awhile a project comes along that is so outstanding it merits our attention. For example, Cedar Environmental of Lebanon, founded and headed by Ziad Abichaker, developed Eco-Prefab 1.0, an extraordinary prefabricated house constructed with 100 percent recycled materials.

Eco-Prefab 1.0 was built using 146,000 plastic bags. (Photo: Ziad Abichaker.)

I met Ziad last year when we were co-presenters at the Eco Meda conference on waste management in Barcelona.  Ziad has been building the social enterprise Cedar Environmental by engaging the citizens of many small Lebanese communities in resource recovery. No such efforts have ever been undertaken in these communities, and there is little or no waste management or industrial infrastructure to support such an enterprise. Yet he and his colleagues are creating a viable and growing business based on a commitment to the environment. Moreover, they’re transforming resources into products that meet the needs of the citizens of those communities. Ziad, an engineer, is designing the technology for an entire local resource ecosystem.