Waste Management Background

Current Practices

In Beirut and Mount Lebanon (excluding the Caza of Jbeil), Solid Waste Management (SWM) is still based on the 1997 Emergency Plan. Outside Beirut and Mount Lebanon, municipalities continue to assume lead responsibility for carrying out SWM operations. The  Emergency Plan assumed that Sukleen would collect 1,700 tons per day (equivalent to 620,000 t/y); and recover 160 tons per day of recyclables. As the geographic coverage of Sukleen expanded, the design capacity was quickly exceeded to 2,200 tons per day in 2008, and waste recovery rates dropped to around 6-7 percent (SWEEP-NET, 2010). Recyclables include cardboard (about 40-45 percent), plastics (27-29 percent), and other items (tins, wood, tires, glass, and aluminium).

About 300 tons of organic waste (about 13 percent of incoming waste) is processed in the Coral compost plant producing 110 tons of finished compost. The remaining waste fraction is baled, wrapped and hauled for final disposal at the Naameh Landfill.

The main Institutions and Organizational structures are: 

  • Ministry of Environment (MoE)
  • Ministry of Interior and Municipalities (MoIM)
  • Ministry of Public Health (MoPH)
  • Ministry of Finance (MoF)
  • Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR)
  • Office of the Minister of State for Administrative Reform (OMSAR)

Policies and Strategies

Management of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in Lebanon does not yet benefit from a well- delineated national policy to define the overall tools or means for achieving goals and for combining forces between the key stakeholders. The September 2010 Plan favoured the waste-to-energy (WTE) option in large cities and builds on the 2006 plan for the rest of the Lebanese territories. In February 2013, MOE, MOIM, and CDR proposed a draft plan for the adoption of WTE in major coastal cities. Lately, an inter-ministerial task force was formed by COM (2014) to prepare recommendations for a national strategy for SWM and propose alternative solutions for Naameh sanitary landfill and Tripoli semi-controlled dump. In 2015, the Council of Ministers approved a new plan for solid waste treatment in Lebanon which is divided Lebanon into six service areas.

Related programmes and other donor activities

  • The Italian Development Cooperation financed many activities in the solid waste sector mainly in South Lebanon.
  • The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) financed the construction of a number of small-scale plants, mostly in South Lebanon.
  • The Economic and Social Fund for Development at CDR is also financing with an EU grant an integrated solid waste management facility at Bar Elias in the Beqaa valley.
  • The European Union funded a biogas waste-to-energy (WtE) pilot project in Baalbek.