Environmentalists Warn Of Mediterranean Pollution From Lebanon Land Reclamation

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Articles of Interest
The following articles are provided as PDF downloads.
Coffee Industry Responsible for Significant Plastic Litter

How many people today grab a takeaway coffee cup from the local cafe to drink on the go? We don’t know, but the number must be enormous.. Most every one of the above have a plastic top that will last 100s of years. Some cafes still use plastic cups that last a similar time. Is 10 minutes of coffee worth 100s of years of trash? These items can be seen littering our gutters and on our streets all over the place. If they were all cardboard, they would still be littered, but they would, at least, be gone in a short time. They do not need to be made of plastic. Read More...
How Much Is Enough?

On the way home from the gym last week, a distance of about 1 km (1/2 mile), I counted the items of plastic litter on the curb as I walked. In that short distance I counted 63 pieces of plastic litter. Plastic drink bottles, bottle tops, candy wrappers, plastic film, polystyrene fragments etc. That seemed to be a lot to me. I guess it is a generational thing. Our parents would have been horrified to see that amount, whereas it seems to go unnoticed by our youth of today. In another 20 years how many pieces will there be on this stretch, -- 200? What will today’s youth think of that new amount then when they are older? Will their children be so readily accepting of a higher amount of litter?

Environmentalists Warn Of Mediterranean Pollution From Lebanon Land Reclamation

Posted on January 14, 2018 by DrRossH in Landfills and Disposal

A land reclamation project that uses vast amounts of garbage extends hundreds of feet into the sea. ‘We are fishing plastic,’ says a fisherman. The country has long struggled to manage its waste.

Source: Environmentalists Warn Of Mediterranean Pollution From Lebanon Land Reclamation

Lebanon is drowning in its own garbage. Beirut and its suburbs alone generate more than 3,000 tons of trash per day, according to government figures. Corruption, bad infrastructure and a weak government have all contributed to dysfunction when it comes to waste disposal. In 2015, the crisis became so severe that trash was left to rot for months on city streets. That sparked massive protests against the government.

Environmental activists believe this is also about building new land that could someday be lucrative to developers and the politicians who back them.Gebara doesn’t dispute this. Asked if this is about money more than trash, he replies: “Of course!”

Lebanon is a signatory to part of the Barcelona Convention, an agreement among Mediterranean countries to protect their sea. But the convention does not yet have a well-developed enforcement mechanism; in most cases, other countries intervene only when a government asks for help. Lebanon has not asked for help in this case since its own government is backing the project.

Politics are another factor. Some diplomats, who asked not to be identified as they are discussing a sensitive matter, say Lebanon’s refugee crisis may play a role in other countries’ reluctance to get involved in helping to resolve the country’s garbage crisis.

Lebanon hosts more than a million refugees from nearby Syria. Many European governments fear more refugees could try to enter Europe, should the Lebanese government stop allowing them to remain in Lebanon.

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Dr Ross Headifen is an active promotor of the issues of plastic waste and what it is doing to our environment. He looks at issues concerning the proliferation of plastic waste and methods to control/reduce it. Including Reduce, Replace, Recycle and a new 4th R for Rejuvenation using landfill biodegradable additives to make plastics fade away.

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