Hadi Awada, an organic farmer at Kfar Kila, is also worried. “People are already selling materials like iron and aluminum. But they are worried about other wastes like stone being contaminated with toxic substances.”
Behind the ant house, the horse is grazing in a green meadow found for small yellow flowers. The roads running in the middle of town have been completely cleared. A group of men chatting near a gas station. Israeli drones make noise by ruined buildings.
Reclaimed land
“We will store tile bleu in designated areas for later recycling. We must follow strict environmental standards set out by the Ministry of the Environment,” says Mayor Kfar Kila of Hassanchit.
He hopes that the analysis of the tile rub will be carried out soon to assess the exact level of contamination. Here the mayor argues that waste from war is transported and managed in a responsible way, but elsewhere there is a great fear of seeing it preserved without respect for the environment.
“I think our biggest challenge is to avoid previous disasters, like in 2006.” That year, a 33-day war broke out between Israel and Hezbollah.
“Most of the debris was dumped in two mountains near the airport, and remained there for at least 10 years, leaking into the ground and the Mediterranean,” explains Isamu Thorol, a professor at the University of America (AUB) and a construction and demolition waste management expert.
At the beginning of December, former Minister of Public Works Ali Hamiye wanted to dispose of war debris in landfills and public territories, and use some of them on coastal levees.
Suburbs
Since the battle began in October 2023, the total number of wreckages so far has been around 32 million tons. Tamara Elzeinthe new Minister of Environment in Lebanon, I told the magazine New Line. According to the World Bank until November 2024, the war between 2023 and 2024 produced 50 million tonnes of waste.
The French National Centre for Science and Research (CNRS) estimates that between October 8, 2023 and September 2024, 2 million tonnes of tile rub remained in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which were bombed based on ad hoc.
“The Israeli military adopted an urban strategy and destroyed the entire neighborhood through bombing and placement of explosives,” says the CNRS author.
“It’s also different geographically. In 2006, most of the waste was concentrated in the outskirts of Beirut. Now it’s also in the south, with about 100 villages being crushed. The situation is much more severe,” continues the waste management expert.
Anyway, according to L’Orient-le-Jourwaste from the southern suburbs and southern Lebanon is temporarily sent to the Jdeidé landfill on the outskirts of Beirut.
recycling
Once expansion work is complete on this site, it will be transported to the Costa Brava Reclamation Site on the southern coast of Beirut. Requests for interviews with the government on this subject have not been answered.
For months, activists and scientists have documented the environmental impact of war in Lebanon.
With the help of the residents, they underscored the lack of preparation and political vision, driving the process of reconstruction and sustainable rehabilitation.
Government-issued circulations for the management of tile bleets specify that they must be carried out in accordance with environmental standards.
“We don’t know if companies will comply with these standards because there is no clear monitoring mechanism to ensure effective sorting and recycling,” assumes Yara Khalek, urban planning researcher at the organization Public Works Studio.
debris
“The principles of sorting and recycling may be a good starting point, but the real issue is the lack of a clear national strategy. What we have is the old ministerial cycle, and its implementation is done without a clear framework or division of responsibility.”
Environmental organizations and scientists have launched a petition requesting clear and effective management of tile rubs and suggesting solutions. Waste analysis, sorting, temporary disposal in places that are not harmful to health or the environment, creating local jobs, and especially developing new technologies.
In the southern suburbs of Beirut, like villages in southern Lebanon, everyone is about to be organized to remove debris and erase traces of this new war.
“Recycling and reuse of this waste can help sustainable reconstruction as communities, government authorities and experts work to restore both the environment and the economy,” emphasizes Hisham Unes, chairman of the Green Southern Association.
This is also the approach proposed by South engineer and director Riad Al-Assaad for construction. “We need to recycle the shards locally, give them value and involve local people in the process.
Toxic
“To bring your life back to the village, bringing cardboard boxes isn’t enough. You have to think about all other aspects, including activity, agriculture,” the entrepreneur argues.
The latter, in collaboration with AUB, launched a recycling project for tile ble. “We grind it all down and see how much we can reuse it in the cement industry, for example,” he adds.
According to Mohamad Abiad, an environmental, agriculture and food researcher at AUB and food researcher at AUB, the most worrying threat is pollution associated with heavy metals found in bombs and destroyed things.
“If not properly managed, solar panel and battery waste can lead to a long-term toxic crisis. Heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and lithium can last for centuries and pollute water, soil and air,” the researchers explain.
bombing
Rebuilding takes time and money. At the ruins, the inhabitants are trying to regain their former lives among fallen walls, torn lives, uprooted trees and traces left by Israeli forces.
At Kfar Kila, Ali Hammoud Chit continues to build a future for bricks. The man sighs as he walks the earth, damaged by a bulldozer truck.
“There was a great olive tree here, over 100 years old. They uprooted everything and destroyed it all.”
Next to him, Jamal, his grandparents, dromedaly, bites a small grass he finds on the upward-facing Earth. Of the ant animals, he is the only survivor of the Israeli bombing.
This author
Amélie David is a Lebanon-based freelance journalist who covers the story of environmental and climate change. This article is published through the Ecologist Writers Fund. Ask readers to donate and ask some authors to pay £250 for their work. please Donate now. You can learn more about the fund and create applications on our website.
