The garbage is engulfing Lebanon and is starting to
. Politicians are making this crisis seem hard to solve. However, the Lebanese environmental and industrial engineer Ziad Abichaker shows, through this video, how easy it is to put an end to this national mess. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JukwRR1pzvs The importance of this plan is that it offers a sustainable solution. In fact, what government officials need to do is to find a permanent solution to make sure Lebanon stays clean. Actually, this zero waste plan is all about recycling and involving all Lebanese people in the process. It all starts in our houses where we have to divide the trash into two bags. One should contain food leftovers, napkins, and dirty papers. The other one should contain cans, aluminum, plastic, glass, iron, and other products that can be recycled. In fact, the plan is decentralized which means that municipalities and private sectors have important roles.
Here are the steps:
Step 1: Transportation
First of all, each region should sort its own waste meaning that municipalities should not send the trash to Beirut to sort them. That way, the traffic jam will be significantly lowered.
Step 2: Waste sorting
The goal in this step is to encourage people to recycle. When the trash arrives at the factory where it has to be sorted, it will be weighed. Depending on the amount of the trash the municipality has to pay money. So if people in that region recycle less, they will pay more. That way, municipalities will encourage people to recycle in order not to generate a lot of trash and to avoid paying a lot. Then, unrecyclable trash will be transformed to fertilizers.
Step 3: Recycling
Thanks to recycling, we can make a lot of products from waste, which are the following:
Bottle of water and soda:
polyester
Colored plastic:
flower pots, plastic containers for fruits and vegetables, and water hoses.
Cardboard:
toilet paper
Iron:
rebars
Glass:
bottles and jars
Plastic bags:
eco-boards The benefits of this plan are cost-effective and eco-friendly. Also, it offers a lot of job opportunities which will reduce unemployment. In addition to that, this plan makes sure that our health will not be affected in a negative way, so people will pay less for healthcare.
Promoting waste management through eco-friendly planters
This is not the first time Abichaker finds an eco-friendly way to make Lebanon clean again. He recently showed us how we can use rubbish to produce food. In fact, Abichaker built
eco-friendly vertical planters
that are made of discarded plastic bags and other plastics that cannot be recycled. Also, by using these planters that should be placed on roofs, one can use household waste, industrial waste, and 1 square meter to produce 200 lettuces every 45 days.
