Nabil Habayeb President and CEO, General Electric Middle East

The environmental problems in the Middle East are huge, and as of yet we still don’t have a common approach to resolve them. As a technology provider, we at GE are doing everything we can to address these issues, but the key thing is implementation of policies and solutions.

This will require a good understanding of the problem by the leadership, a commitment to resolve the problems, and a partnership with all stakeholders — public, private, non-governmental organizations, governmental and financiers — to act accordingly. The main thing is to make sure that we bring awareness and solutions, and have a debate, and come up with reports that focus on the region’s specific issues, in which the different sectors can take an interest.

Five years ago our chairman started the “Ecomagination” initiative, which takes the products that we have and invests in solutions that are environmentally friendly. These products have to go through several kinds of certification to ensure that we reduce gasses, purify water, have more efficient power generation equipment and produce sustainable energy…so, from a company point of view, we’re doing what we think is our responsibility, not just from a corporate social responsibility perspective — of course we have shareholders who will be looking for their return since we are not an NGO. A company like ours can now develop products that are environmentally safe and at the same time profitable. That is why we dub the initiative “Green is Green.”

Ziad Abichaker President, Cedar Environmental

Since 1992 our country has been under an emergency plan for solid waste collection and disposal — an emergency plan that lasts 17 years?  Something is amiss here. First, the plan has 50 percent of Lebanon’s waste centralized in one landfill site; it was Bourj Hammoud until 1997 and since then it has been Naameh. Soon, space will no longer be available to keep on this environmentally destructive path in Naameh and an alternative would be in order.

There are two alternatives.  Either we keep extending the current “emergency” plan and keep centralizing waste disposal in a mega landfill or we decide to reverse the road and start doing what most other countries are doing, which is sorting, recycling and composting.  Some would argue that we are doing this now under the current plan, but what they don’t know is that we are barely doing this for 6 percent of our total daily waste load.

Soon, it will be a nearly impossible task to convince another region to accommodate the waste of Beirut and Mount Lebanon in their valleys and open spaces, which makes the alternative of continuing with the current plan practically impossible to pursue.

Every region will have to select a technology that will have the least destructive footprint geographically and environmentally. The problem is it might already be too late. Such an endeavor would require at least a two year planning and execution period.  Are the people in charge of the solid waste file doing any thinking about this eventuality?

 “The problem is, it might already be too late”- Ziad Abichaker

Garabed Kazanjian Oceans campaigner, Greenpeace, Lebanon Branch

It is astounding to see a country like Lebanon, which relies greatly on tourism to rebuild its economy, gradually and consistently obliterating its ecotourism assets. Two-thirds of the Lebanese population reside on the coast, a fact that naturally exerts great pressure on coastal resources. Twenty years on after the end of the civil war, solid waste dumps still exist in the form of coastal mountains, constituting a health hazard to the public and a source of toxic discharge to the marine life in their vicinity. Some sites, such as the Saida dump, continue to grow to this date like a cancerous tumor in the absence of waste treatment plans. Moreover, more than 50 pipes continue to discharge untreated sewage on a daily basis into the sea. Chaotic urban development contributes to the destruction of vital marine habitat, primarily the nursery areas of numerous commercially important fish species.

Fragile as our marine ecosystem is, due in great part to the pollution and destruction it is subjected to daily, not to mention the intensely destructive and unsustainable fishing practices throughout the whole Lebanese coast, it will not have the resilience to combat the effects of global catastrophes, primarily climate change and ocean acidification.

That is precisely why Greenpeace is campaigning for the establishment of fully protected marine reserves covering 40 percent of the Mediterranean. These no take/no dump areas (areas protected from both fishing and pollution) aim at protecting vital habitats, such as spawning grounds and nursery areas of threatened marine species, and aid in the recovery of depleted stocks.

Furthermore, the new Lebanese government should impose stricter regulations on coastal industries in regards to their waste disposal, update and implement fishing regulations, and put into practice the zero waste program.

Rima Habib Associate professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, American University of Beirut

We know that pollutants are responsible for a number of public health problems in Lebanon and beyond… In Akkar in North Lebanon, for example, we performed studies that found evidence of heavy microbiological contamination in water sources, usually as a result of infrastructural problems. In these areas, outbreaks of diarrhea and other symptoms are common… In some communities as much as 80 percent of household water sources can be contaminated, and close to 30 percent of households report sicknesses as a result of contaminated water. Children, of course, are particularly susceptible. This problem is more endemic to rural areas where there is a lack of proper infrastructure to treat and transport water. Another health risk is air pollution. Lebanon is not a highly industrialized country, so the largest contributors to air pollution are traffic emissions, which are usually concentrated in and around urban centers where there is a lot of traffic – Beirut, Tripoli, etc. Air pollution leads to respiratory ailments and to a lesser extent cardiovascular disease as well. Another problem with air pollution is CO2 emissions, of course. To deal with these dangers, it is necessary to apply environmental and public health standards and involve major branches of government…it would be truly excellent if Lebanon could establish a multi-disciplinary agency that involved all the ministries, something like the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States, that has “teeth” to enforce standards and make real changes to address human health from the preventive angle first, meeting possible threats before they result in illness.

“In some communities as much as 80 percent of household water sources are contaminated” – Rima Habib

Politician turned climate change champion Al Gore  told The New York Times that “Once the world makes it clear that we are going to follow a roadmap to a low-carbon economy, the best-managed businesses will seek to race out in front of that emerging trend.”

In other words, as public awareness of the causes and consequences of environmental degradation increases with time, market demand for “green” products — those that are produced in an environmentally friendly way, and can be used without risk of environmental damage — will increase as well.

“The environment is no longer a burden on the market,” said Edgar Chehab, energy and environment program manager of the United Nations Development Project in Lebanon. “Now it’s part of being a competitive industry: if you don’t produce products in an environmentally friendly way, you lose out on key markets.”

In the last few years, markets in Europe and the United States in particular have demonstrated a willingness to pay more for green products, he said.

All over Lebanon, new “green” markets are expanding and old industries are modifying practices to soften their impact on the environment. While many environmental advocates argue that measures have not gone far enough, an overview of reforms indicates that individuals and industries have not been wholly unresponsive to the country’s environmental problems.

One man’s trash…

New industries are rising to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Among them is the recycling and composting industry, which seeks to capitalize on, rather than simply dispose of, solid waste.

Ziad Abichaker, president of Cedar Environmental, is one of  a growing number of entrepreneurs turning recycling and composting into a viable business model.

“In Lebanon, 80 percent of municipal solid waste is organic, compostable material,” said Abichaker. “That’s roughly 3,200 tons of compostable garbage generated every day. After composting, that mass is reduced to around 1,750 tons.”

With one ton of high-quality compost selling for as much as $100, Abichaker said the economic viability of going green speaks for itself.

Cedar Environmental has built 11 material recovery facilities (MRFs), capable of handling close to 10 to 12 tons each of municipal solid waste per day, and a larger MRF for the Jbeil area capable of handling 200 tons per day.

The MRFs use a “Dynamic Composting” technique, in which an enzymatic bacterial component is added to organic waste to accelerate the degradation process that converts waste to compost. In this way, organic waste can be rendered safe — from a bacterial point of view — in three days, compared to the 90 days required by ordinary composting.

Inert materials such as glass, metal and plastic are recycled according to conventional methods, said Abichaker, adding that the profits gained from these materials are significantly less than those of compost.

“The real advantage of our MRFs is that they are modular,” he said. “We can bring them directly to communities, and place them in close proximity to where people live because dynamic composting is practically odorless.”

This also cuts down on transportation costs, he added.

Do you feel the Lebanese government is taking appropriate action on climate change?

Living off the land

The environment itself is a valuable resource, and continues to directly sustain a significant segment of Lebanon’s population through small scale agricultural and fishing enterprises. However, both of these occupations face present and future challenges due to environmental degradation. Many experts predict that the agricultural sector will be the hardest hit by the effects of climate change in the years to come.

Another factor that impacts agricultural markets is the improper use of synthetic pesticides, a phenomenon that has received increasing attention from specialists and monitors over the last few months.

Researchers at the American University of Beirut’s (AUB) Faculty of Agriculture, as well as studies conducted by the Fanar research station in Mount Lebanon, noted the presence of pesticide residue above internationally tolerated levels.

The issue came to a head in November when produce exported from Lebanon was returned because pesticide levels were deemed unacceptable by destination countries.

Yusuf Abou-Jawad, professor of plant pathology at the AUB Faculty of Agriculture said educating farmers about the proper use of pesticides was the key to reducing residue levels.

“The major solution is to convince farmers to depend less on pesticides and to follow an integrated pest management approach or a rational use of pesticides,” he said.“If farmers start abiding by the preharvest interval [the waiting period necessary for pesticides to take effect and be rendered harmless] mentioned on the label of each pesticide [canister], the residue problem will be solved immediately.”

Living off the sea

The challenges faced by Lebanon’s coastal ecosystems, upon which the country’s fishing industry relies, may not be so simple to solve. The coastal waters face an array of harmful influences, from industrial dumping, municipal wastewater and, particularly, unsustainable fishing practices.

The Lebanon branch of the international organization Greenpeace has made the rehabilitation of coastal zones its top priority.

“In terms of biomass, the Levantine basin is the poorest region of the Mediterranean in terms of harvestable fish,” said Greenpeace representative and oceans campaigner Garabed Kazanjian. “At the same time, it is a very important region, as many types of fish come here to spawn.” This makes Lebanon’s coastal ecosystems particularly delicate to external influence, he said.

“It’s a vicious cycle,” added Kazanjian. “Overfishing reduces aquatic populations, so fishers have to turn to more destructive fishing methods — like small mesh nets — to catch whatever they can.”

Using small mesh nets traps young fish that have not yet reached maturity, destroying the new generations before they have had a chance to spawn.

To fight these issues, Greenpeace has launched a multi-fronted campaign to raise awareness of safe and sustainable practices among fishers.

“There’s already a big fear among fishers that their industry could be on its way to collapse,” said Kazanjian. “Even though we’re telling them they have to change — and even limit — their methods of fishing, most of the people we’ve talked to have welcomed our advice because they’re looking for a solution too.”

Kicking the oil habit

In 2008, the Lebanese Energy Society and the Lebanese Center for Energy Efficiency and Planning released a report, authored by engineer Chafic Abisaid, detailing the country’s current energy practices and potential for future expansion into renewable energy sources. It noted that thermal, solar, wind, hydroelectric and bioenergy technologies all have long-term potential in Lebanon, but that these remain distant possibilities as the country is still in the early stages of data acquisition.

Ronald Diab, general manager of the Energy Efficiency Group in Lebanon said that the realistic first step for Lebanon to reduce its energy consumption would be to optimize the efficiency of its industry and institutions.

“In terms of economically viable solutions, you need to develop utility-oriented projects,” he said.

“Besides some cases of using solar-thermal energy to heat water, most renewable energy technologies are not economically viable in Lebanon at this time…there is still a lot of preliminary research that needs to be done.”

On the other hand, improving existing infrastructure in order to maximize the benefits of energy consumed is an immediate first step to reducing dependence on fossil fuels, said Diab.

His group has performed more than 500 energy audits of companies and launched more than 80 energy efficiency projects since it was founded. Because it lowers costs, energy efficiency carries its own market incentive.

“The most important aspect at this point is regulation,” said Diab. “A lot of the products entering Lebanon — light bulbs, for example — don’t meet international standards of energy efficiency.”

And as long as energy is cheap, the consumer base isn’t going to exert its influence over the market to select energy-efficient products, he said.

While a steep reduction in the country’s consumption of fossil fuels may not be a feasible option in the short-term, awareness of the need for a transition to sustainable energy is growing steadily.

On November 19-20, the Arab Forum for Environment and Development convened to present its 2009 report on climate change and the possibilities of sustainable energy solutions.

The event brought together

major players from industry and non-governmental organizations, with governmental and public speakers.

While highlighting major areas of concern, the conference showcased a wide array of industry and public groups working to transition the Middle East to a more environmentally friendly future.

“It’s going to have to be an evolving process,” said Nabil Habayeb, president and chief executive officer of General Electric in the Middle East, who attended the event.

“Some things can be done now…others will take time,” he said. “Inevitably, we are going to phase out non-renewable resources — this is why leaders need to think ahead about how they will diversify their economies into new fields.”

In their most basic elements, humanity and the natural environment share a common foundation. While the environment and its resources can be harnessed, overexploitation and degradation must eventually take a toll on human life too.

As the first decade of the 21st century comes to an end, those costs are becoming evident. Car exhaust thickens the air we breathe. Industrial waste poisons the water we drink. In the Mediterranean, overfishing threatens what once seemed a boundless source of food. And year by year, the specter of a slowly warming planet looms larger, its dangers fully recognized if not yet fully understood.

Though set within relatively limited boundaries, Lebanon’s environment is characterized by a diversity of geographical zones: from its coastal beaches to the peaks of Mount Lebanon, from the fields of the Bekaa Valley to the banks of the Litani River. In a region marked by a scarcity of natural resources, Lebanon enjoys a relatively mild climate, plentiful rainfall and a number of fertile agricultural zones. Yet these advantages are not without limit.

Pollution and overuse of key resources degrade the country’s ecology and impact the human life tied to it. 

To a certain degree, these costs are quantifiable. In 2004, the World Bank, along with the Mediterranean Environmental Technical Assistance Program (METAP), published a report estimating that in the year 2000, environmental degradation costs in Lebanon — primarily in terms of public health costs, but also taking into account prospective revenue, either from impacted industry or loss of productivity — amounted to some $565 million, or around 2.8 percent of the nation’s economy. The report, The Cost of Environmental Degradation (COED), also points out that due to limitations in existing data, the above figure is likely an underestimation of the true costs of environmental degradation.

Invisible threat

Water resources lead METAP’s list of impacted areas, with degradation costs estimated at $175 million in health related expenditures. Every year, contaminated or unsanitary water leads to sickness and even death, particularly in rural communities where adequate water treatment facilities are often absent.

Children, who are particularly susceptible to infection, are the hardest hit: the report notes that 10 percent of all child deaths in Lebanon result from diarrheal disease directly linked to unsanitary water, sanitation and hygiene.

Contamination isn’t the only threat to Lebanon’s water. Though it is often identified as a water-surplus country in a water-deficit region, Edgar Chehab, energy and environment program manager of the  United Nations Development Program in Lebanon, told Executive that long- term water security should be a matter of major national concern.

“It’s a myth that this country has limitless water reserves,” he said. “The truth is, we barely have enough to meet our present needs.”

Lack of water management, particularly with regards to the run-off following Lebanon’s heavy rainfalls, means that the vast majority of Lebanon’s “water surplus” runs into the sea instead of being absorbed into underground aquifers, he said.

This causes water shortages and erosion of topsoil, weakening growing conditions in Lebanon’s agricultural sector. Without an adequate water management system in place, farmers draw on dwindling underground reserves to irrigate their crops.

As a basic formula, the system is unsustainable, Chehab said, adding that unchecked, the current pattern could lead to increased water shortages and desertification.

Though other sources contested the severity of Chehab’s estimate, few argue with his prediction that these problems will increase in coming years, as climate change alters the region’s weather patterns.

A 2001 report by Fadi Karam of the Department of Irrigation and Agro-Meteorology at the Lebanese Agricultural Research Institute, notes that in the latter part of the 20th century, Lebanon’s water systems were marked by a number of detrimental changes, including lower ground water levels, disappearance of certain springs and wetlands and a cessation of certain rivers — including the Litani — during dry seasons.

Paradoxically, these changes have been accompanied by an increase in rainfall, said Chehab. The ecological danger lies in the rainfall’s frequency and intensity: the last decades saw rains occur with greater intensity in a narrower window of time, meaning less time to absorb into groundwater reserves, and higher degrees of runoff and topsoil erosion. 

Solid waste management in Lebanon

Lebanon’s annual environmental damage costs (2000)

Going green or going greenhouse?

Beside implementing an appropriate water management strategy, there is little Lebanon can do to mitigate the effects of climate change in the short term. Climate change — the accelerated warming of the planet due to the build-up of greenhouse gasses trapped in the atmosphere and shifts in meteorological patterns that result — is reaching all corners of the globe, and stems from collective practices; namely, the world’s heavy reliance on fossil fuels for energy.

The vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions originate in the burning of coal and gas, and the drive to shift to clean, renewable energy sources has become a global undertaking.

Though responsible for only around 0.07 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, Lebanon’s energy sector is almost exclusively reliant on liquid fossil fuels for electricity generation, with only a small fraction of total energy supplied by hydroelectric dams.

Vahakn Kabakian, project manager for the Second National Communication to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, told Executive that Lebanon will face serious consequences if the causes of climate change continue unchecked. By some estimates, Lebanon could see a 15 to 20 percent reduction in rainfall in certain areas by the year 2050, resulting in water shortages, shifting agricultural patterns and health impacts, he said.

The burning of fossil fuels by both the public and private sectors already takes a toll on public health due to urban air pollution. Air pollution raises the likelihood that urban dwellers develop chronic bronchitis and respiratory disorders, and can exacerbate the likelihood of lung cancer. The COED report estimates that the cost of air pollution in Lebanon is roughly $256 million annually. 

Lebanon is party to the Kyoto protocol, and has therefore pledged to work toward the protocol’s targets of reducing emissions by 12 percent globally by 2010, and by 35 percent by 2030. Kabakian is currently working in partnership with the Ministry of Environment to establish a nationwide inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, by evaluating the intensity of emissions in each region of Lebanon.

“The first step is to assess Lebanon’s vulnerability,” he said. “Once you have the data you can run models to see what will likely happen in the future… When your predictions are established, then you can begin to discuss your mitigation options.”

Not in my backyard

While consumption of fossil fuels leads to air pollution and a rise in greenhouse gasses, consumption of material resources — whether in the form of ordinary household products or industrial solids — generates solid waste. Managed and treated correctly, solid waste is not a threat to the environment. However, leading environmental advocates say that just by the sheer quantity of Lebanon’s waste alone, it is evident that the country’s solid waste management programs have a long way to go in achieving ecological balance.

“Dumping solid waste is not the main problem,” said Ali Darwish, chairman of the non-governmental organization Greenline. “Problems arise in terms of what is being lost. Waste represents an enormous amount of primary material, material that could and should be recycled and reused.”

“When we make something only to dispose of it and bury it, we create a continuous demand on raw materials, which have to be extracted from the environment,” he added.

METAP estimates that each person in Lebanon generates roughly a kilogram of solid waste every day (the figure is slightly lower for those in rural areas and slightly higher in urban areas).

That means total solid waste generation for one year is some 1.4 million tons, growing at a yearly rate of about 6 percent. Of that waste, about 8 percent is composted and 8 percent recycled. Some 46 percent is landfilled and 38 percent is left in open dumps.

Lebanon has no national solid waste strategy. Management of waste is left up to the country’s municipal authorities, which sometimes contract private treatment facilities to dispose of the problem but often resort to open dumping, said Darwish.

Even in the Greater Beirut and Mount Lebanon areas, dumping and landfilling remain the primary final destinations for the majority of municipal waste.

Besides wasting valuable resources, open dumping can contaminate soil and groundwater reserves, leading to health problems in communities close to dumping sites.

According to a report released in 2007 by the MORES agency, under the Mediterranean Environmental Technical Assistance Program, the two most prominent sources of pollution to Lebanon’s groundwater are solid waste and waste water.

When waste is dumped in one place consistently, it forms a compact layer over time. Rain water filtering through this layer picks up toxic chemicals and heavy metals from waste that has not been correctly sorted or treated, continuing into the soil below, and draining into groundwater. The contaminated water may be used later in irrigation or consumption, posing serious health risks for consumers.

As the problem of solid waste shows, pollution rarely remains confined to a single sector. Just as the elements pass through different states, so too is contamination spread to all corners of the environment; hitching a ride on the natural cycle of life.