‘Drive Throw’ move boosts recycling amid waste crisis
BEIRUT motorists pull up to a drivethrough counter – not for fast-food, but to exchange empty bottles and cardboard for cash – a novelty in a country long plagued by garbage crises.
Festering landfills often overflow in crisis-hit Lebanon, waste is burnt illegally at informal dump sites and rubbish floats off the coast in the Mediterranean Sea.
State-run recycling has largely fallen by the wayside in a nation grappling with a three-year-long economic collapse. “The government used to be in charge of this sector; now it is bankrupt,” said Pierre Baaklini, 32, founder of Lebanon Waste Management.
About a year ago he started the first “Drive Throw” recycling station and opened a second in February in Burj Hammoud, a Beirut suburb known for its proximity to a landfill.
With more than 80% of Lebanon’s population living in poverty, the poorest eke out a meagre living picking through dumpsters for anything they can sell for recycling or scrap.
Baaklini said his customers are generally environmentally conscious and among the minority “with sufficient income”.
People drive up to the station in their cars, register their details and place bags and boxes of loosely sorted recyclables on the counter. Workers accept everything from cardboard to plastic, glass, metal, e-waste, batteries and even used cooking oil.
A sign lists the prices – 1kg of cardboard is worth 2 000 Lebanese pounds (around two cents), while aluminium cans are worth 50 000 pounds a kilogram.
Incompetence and corruption caused a spectacular waste crisis in Lebanon in 2015, when rivers of garbage filled the streets and ran into the sea, leading to protests by thousands.
No viable long-term solution has since been found, and the destruction of two sorting plants in a catastrophic August 2020 explosion at Beirut port worsened the problem. Behind the scenes at Drive Throw, the recyclables are sorted, while the plastic is shredded and cleaned. The two facilities have taken in a total of 450 tons of recyclables, founder Baaklini said, adding that the materials are sold to both local and international clients.
Environmental engineer Ziad Abichaker said recycling had always been neglected by authorities.
Only “about 10%” of Lebanon’s daily waste load of 5000 tons is recycled, said Abichaker, who heads Cedar Environmental, a group that specialises in “zero waste” technologies.
Authorities were studying a national waste management plan but there has been no progress due to institutional deadlock, he said.
A caretaker government with limited powers has been at the helm for more than a year.
Abichaker said “90% of the sorting plants built over the years” with money from international donations had stopped working, pointing to “corruption”.