From the era of the middle of the last decade to the economic collapse, the Corona virus and Beirut Port’s explosion on August 4th, the public sector crashed and State institutions fell apart along with the devaluation of the Lebanese lira against the US dollar. Unemployment widespread over many months. Gradually, the Lebanese people tried to find quick solutions to overcome the crisis by depending on their autonomous capabilities. This matter led to the expansion of the private sector, which consists of self-employment and individual initiatives. Therefore, the economic system broke the overwhelming deadlock, while there was economic growth and less unemployment.
The phenomenon of individual initiatives and small enterprises started to increase during recent years, especially in the coastal and mountainous regions that are far from the capital Beirut. In this report, we will tackle individual and environmental initiatives that enabled their stakeholders to enhance their capabilities, in order to face the economic crisis that invaded Lebanon, and to spread local development and reinforce the principle of solidarity among individuals.
Waste recycling
We must point out that some projects contributed to reduce pollution and preserving the environment. Salim’s project is one of these projects. Since 9 years, he had his baby “Daniel.” He discovered later that the baby had congenital heart abnormalities as a result of pollution and odors coming from burning waste.
Since then, he dedicated his life to save the environment so that children would not get diseases, and families would avoid that their children get congenital abnormalities resulting from pollution. He launched an individual initiative aiming only at preserving the environment. The initiative is a project focusing on raising awareness among people regarding the right methods to do waste sorting at home. He explains to them the importance of classifying the used materials into solid materials (i.e. plastic, glass, cardboard and nylon) and organic materials (i.e. leftovers).
During a short time, and due to the importance of the project, Salim managed to finance it in collaboration with international organizations believing in the importance of addressing such ideas in the Lebanese society. The organizations donated him large quantities of gunny sacks to be distributed to the village’s households, in order to use them in the sorting process.
Salim’s mission started at this point. He tours the neighboring villages on daily basis, collects the waste bags sorted at the citizens’ homes, and then works on sorting them again properly inside his land in Srafand area. His action ends by selling the plastic resulting from this waste.
In order to facilitate his activity and encourage citizens, he put more than 1,000 waste containers in Sarafand area. His initiative was not limited to the village of Sarafand only, but also expanded to different areas in South Lebanon, including: Adloun, Tefahta, Qaaqaaiyet El Sanoubar, El Bissariye, and El Ghassaniyeh among others.
His initiative was spread in more than 10 villages of the South, i.e. more than 2,000 households in South Lebanon. The population’s task is to sort the non-recyclable items and putting them in the relevant gunny sacks or containers. Salim will then recycle this waste again before achieving the last phase of his project, i.e. selling plastic to factories in US dollar. Therefore, Salim was able to ensure his monthly salary from this project.
Transforming glass into art pieces
Furthermore, in the Southern village of Anssar in particular, the young girl Mariam launched her project, which aims at transforming glass into distinctive shapes by using colors, wood and wax, instead of throwing glass in landfills to get rid of it. The purpose of this project is to transform the pieces of glass into several and various shapes to save them at homes, in an attempt to preserve the environment, especially that glass is a difficult material to be recycled and may cause fire if thrown randomly in the woods and wooded lands.
The idea of this project emerged in 2015 during the waste crisis that swept across Lebanon. The young girl Mariam tried to find quick solutions to address this crisis. She decided to start on her own and contribute to solve this problem. She resolved to start from a project that can reduce pollution, even in a small percentage, especially that she didn’t tolerate seeing the widespread of waste on the roads of her village.
During a short period, she made tests on glass before naming it MARAZAL. This name means beautiful memories, times and moments. Mariam, whose last name is Assi, collects the empty glass bottles and then decorate them to turn into colorful art pieces kept in homes. This step is enough to reduce throwing the glass bottles randomly or in landfills to get rid of them.
While talking to Mariam, she explained the reasons for choosing the name of MARAZAL. This is due to her focus on the beautiful and distinctive moments felt by someone when drinking his/her favorite drink with his/her friend or partner. MAR is the project owner’s first name, Mariam. AZAL is the beautiful moment that lasts forever.
Her project has grown too successful across the regions, which led her to learn the methods of dissolving wax to use it for this project, in addition to using scrap wood. Then, she collects the materials that were made ready to be destroyed, and reuse them in her project. This initiative started as a hobby, but turned to be a beautiful profession that sustains Mariam, after stopping her work in graphic design due to Corona virus and the economic crisis.
“Petro rubber”
The third initiative is launched by the young guy Ahmad, who started his action from the importance of preserving the environment and not burning tires on roads due to their risks in terms of air pollution. The main idea is to recycle rubber tires, which unfit for consumption or use, through new ways inside the plant he owns with some partners, instead of burning these tires during protests and claims. Therefore, the tires are recycled, and from which are extracted the small granules that are used in the playing fields and the production of rugs of the sport halls.
According to Ahmad, tires consist of steel and linen. The steel is extracted from tires by using many industrial equipment available inside the plant in June area. At this point, Ahmad collaborates with his friends in this project. Tires are placed in special equipment to separate linen from rubber and steel. The rubber then transforms into small granules used in the production of the artificial turf of sport fields and rugs used inside sport halls and homes.
During the past years, Ahmad was able to equip more than 200 school playgrounds, and sell the rubber granules to the plants that were importing them from abroad, such as India and Vietnam. Moreover, he managed to equip many halls of sport clubs and some cow farms.
This idea was very successful, especially that a large group of people were convinced of the importance of donating rubber tires, instead of burning them in demonstrations, leading thus to deadly cancer diseases and air pollution. He also succeeded to convince some people by selling used tires for a nominal amount of money, provided that these tires would not be burned on roads. Ahmad will then recycle these tires. It is important to note that some associations agreed with him to donate their old tires constantly. They aimed at encouraging the importance of reusing these tires in different ways and avoiding burning them on roads. This matter led to recycle more tires and sell large quantities of rubber to plants.
Importance of environmental associations
In the same context, Ayman Dandach, a consultant at Lebanon Eco Movement (LEM), said that the environmental associations recently noticed a significant widespread of individual initiatives across the Lebanese regions, especially after the aggravation of the economic crisis.
According to him, after the economic crisis and the Corona virus, citizens tried to search for other jobs that can be enough to meet their monthly needs due to high unemployment. The best solution was to resort to small projects that were characterized by their positive impact on the environment on the one hand, and their ability to provide money in US dollar for these project owners, on the other hand.
Moreover, LEM supported these projects and encouraged its members about the need to continue such projects. LEM also noticed a range of projects where their owners insisted that their experience must be distinctive and based on innovation. Among these projects was the initiative of waste sorting at home and selling it, and collecting solid materials, such as plastic, copper and cardboard among others, and selling these materials to the relevant plants in US dollar. This is in addition to other initiatives that relied on collecting waste or non-organic materials to reuse them in new ways. The circular economy was influenced directly and positively. The circular economy means the use of materials many times repeatedly before transferring them to landfills for destruction or disposal.
These initiatives undoubtedly contributed to reduce the flow of these materials to containers or landfills to be burnt as in the past. Dandach pointed out to the important role of the LEM and environmental associations in raising environmental awareness. Both were able to carry out many awareness campaigns across the Lebanese regions, in order to enable citizens to adopt and apply new life styles, based on taking care of the environment and preserving natural resources.
Enhancing economic growth
Furthermore, the economic expert Dr. Mahmoud Jebai said that these initiatives contributed to enhance economic growth. Therefore, it broke the deadlock that overwhelmed since the beginning of the economic crisis in 2019, due to the collapse of the Lebanese lira against the US dollar, especially that this crisis led to higher unemployment as a group of citizens lost their jobs. That’s why they moved towards self-employment and individual projects that enabled them to ensure their monthly income in US dollar or its equivalent in Lebanese Pounds.
According to Jebai, in 2019-2020, the economic crisis had many negative implications that affected the professions of the Lebanese people. However, this crisis led to creating some individual activities and projects that broke the deadlock of the economy and enhanced local development in many regions.
He also noted that these initiatives were obviously widespread in rural areas and the regions of South, North and Beqaa. Some people worked as tailors, while others chose to prepare and sell homemade food, in addition to moving towards knitting and handicraft among other professions that improved the living conditions of this group of citizens, especially that many projects have a positive impact on the environment and economic growth, such as recycling waste and selling it against money. Such initiatives were widespread in many regions of South Lebanon in particular.
Jebai pointed out that the economy started to grow after the widespread of these initiatives across the regions through the sale and purchase process among citizens, based on dealing in US dollar or its equivalent in Lebanese Pounds, especially that the spread of these initiatives led to an increase in the number of individuals and families, who had benefits from their monthly income. Therefore, unemployment was lower, while these groups improved their living.