By Ester Carpenter — Five Gen-Zer squatted in early November on a small pile of rubbish in the middle of Martyrerplatz in downtown Beirut. In white gloves, they sorted bottle caps, cigarette butts, mouthpieces for hookahs, adhesive tape and plastic food packaging – all waste of the protests from the previous day. Although the five were students, they had not been in class for 26 days. Some of her teachers were upset, but the activists thought cleaning up after the protests that had hit the country since mid-October was more important than learning. They wanted to show the country how to take care of themselves, said 17-year-old Paul Hanna and took a break from sorting. “Without recycling, most of the garbage goes into the sea.” “We don’t want to see garbage on the street,” said Mira Raheb, also 17. “If we clean here, it will change (the mentality).”
Like youth activists around the world, Lebanese environmentalists reject the status quo, which means in Lebanon to protest against rampant government corruption, a sluggish economy and a long list of environmental issues that dominate everyday life. Hoping to take advantage of the current unrest, they are also working to make the country greener. Since the end of the civil war in the 1990s, Lebanon has not been able to provide its citizens with 24/7 electricity, a functioning public transport network, proper waste disposal, or drinking water. The lack of basic supplies has a particularly severe impact on poor families and working-class families, and the environment also suffers from people turning to diesel-powered generators and relying on plastic water bottles.
Last October, wildfire broke out in a forested area south of Beirut that quickly got out of control and set fire to more than 3,000 acres. Hot, windy conditions played a role, but so did the government’s incompetence (three privately donated fire helicopters were in poor condition at a nearby airport). Five days later, over a million Lebanese were on the streets demanding the government’s resignation. Prime Minister Saad Hariri had resigned until the end of October. “The forest fires were an important forerunner of the revolution.” “The forest fires were an important forerunner of the revolution,” said 36-year-old Adib Dada. As part of the protests, Dada, an environmental architect and biomimics specialist, led a guerrilla gardening project that planted 30 native trees and shrubs in downtown Beirut, a group called Regenerate Lebanon.
The NGO was fundamental to get the public excited about collective green solutions to the country’s environmental problems. “It’s about ongoing actions that really protest the change we need to see,” said Joslin Kehdy, the group’s founder. When the protests concentrated around Martyrs’ Square last autumn, the regenerated Lebanon set up a camp there. It includes a kitchen where around 250 regional dishes are served daily without the use of plastic (the organizers rely instead on stainless steel kitchen utensils or the Briq, a traditional Lebanese water jug). It has a maker area with a wall unit as well as a library and an area where donations such as clothing and groceries can be collected. Citizens can stop in a “café” with filtered drinking water and solar-powered charging stations. Kehdy sees the camp as a micromodel that is already being replicated in some villages. One of the biggest environmental problems that the Lebanese of all religious sects have brought together to protest is the garbage that has been accumulating on the streets and beaches for years.
Since 2015, the country has spent at least $ 430 million on landfill contracts that went to business partners of politicians in power. According to reports, landfill operators have not recycled and have brought garbage and toxic waste directly to the Mediterranean, despite regulations. “People are demanding a right to live in a country that manages its waste sustainably,” said Julien Jreissati, an activist at Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa. Jreissati points out that the protests have both political and environmental slogans, and believes that the waste problem could be easily resolved if the government develops an appropriate strategy. According to Greenpeace estimates in the Middle East and North Africa, only 10 percent of garbage is currently recycled in Lebanon. In response to this crisis, an environmental organization called Green Tent was established to coordinate the Gen-Zers waste sorting in downtown Beirut. When a group of friends saw the mountain of garbage left behind by the protests, they started cleaning it up. “We decided to take this initiative to act physically instead of shouting and swearing,” said Karmal Charafeddine, 34. “It pays back our civil duties.”
After a night of protests, everyone who was available met at 8 a.m. to start collecting and sorting. Volunteers showed up and the Green Tent began to coordinate with other environmental groups such as Lebanon Regenerate to find creative solutions for waste reuse – for example, to collect glass and donate it to traditional blowers to make new glassware. Over half a million cigarette butts were handed over to local shaper Paul Abbas, who turned them into surfboard mats. With the increasing decentralization of the protests, the Green Tent decided to “go mobile,” said Charafeddine. The group no longer cleans up on Martyrs Square, but has organized two outside of Beirut and is currently planning a nationwide cleanup.
Towards the end of December, the unrest in Lebanon shows no signs of ending, but one thing is certain: the Lebanese refuse to return to the status quo. “I used to think the problem was so big – waste, the water crisis,” said Joanne Hayek, a member of the Lebanon Regenerate. “For me, the biggest change is that we have realized that we all had the same dream of a clean Lebanon. That has aligned us. “
