Baysoor women’s pilot experience in sorting solid waste‎

Amid the present trash crisis in Lebanon, the Baysoor Women Association point out to their pilot ‎project launched earlier in April 2014 and aimed at mainstreaming at sorting solid waste ‎at the source. The president of the Association, Wafa Malaeb,explained that the project began ‎with the manual sorting of the raw solid waste by workers contracted and paid by the ‎association. Malaeb said the Municipality of Baysour was very supportive and provided a ‎fenced piece of land to facilitate the process. For its part, the United Nations Human Settlements ‎Program offered a hydraulic piston press and a hangar for separation and sorting. Mayor Walid ‎Abu Harb Aridi stressed the need to further support and up scale the project through the ‎involvement of other environmental organizations and activists, noting that his municipality is ‎seeking to replicate the initiative in villages and towns affiliated to the Federation of ‎Municipalities of Al Gharb and Shahar area. Aridi revealed that the municipality ‎is already distributing to households colored bags designed for sorting and recycling. Likewise, ‎the former president of Baysoor Women Association, Nojoud Aridi, highlighted the financial ‎return of the project, noting that one ton of tin collected from soft drinks cans and canned foods, ‎can be sold at $1200; one ton of thin glass at $40; pressed carton at $80; polyester at $300 and ‎plastic up to $400. (Al Mustaqbal, 8 August 2015)‎