The Environment In the Middle East

The environment in the middle east is not exactly a top priority for most governments.

I will give an example about Lebanon:

It still sickens me that to this day that raw sewage pours into the Mediterranean sea in Beirut on the beautiful Corniche where people go jogging, roller-blading and cycling, and what is even worse is that fishermen like to fish right there at the outfalls...

Couple of months ago there was as scandal in which the Beirut river turned red... not too long ago, hundreds of old tires were set ablaze in the Beirut dump site of Karantina creating an environmental disaster.

In 2006, during the Israeli-Hezbollah war in Lebanon, fuel oil tanks on some close-to-sea power stations were bombed creating an eco-disaster...

People in Lebanon don't recycle and they don't cycle much either... even though Lebanon is very small, people insist on using their cars for getting around... And the Lebanese are in love with their horns creating a real noise problem in the large cities.

Municipal waste is dumped in sites sometimes too close to sea and this results in large quantities of plastic ending up in the sea.

During the war, dynamite was used to fish and this affected fish populations. It's hard to catch large fish in Lebanon which is not a good indicator about fish populations.

In a few words, there is much to be done in terms of implementing environmental projects in Lebanon and there is much to be done in raising awareness and changing habits...

However there are some promising water treatment projects, good water treatment companies, good labs, universities and centers of activism which I am listing below:

Green Peace is active in Lebanon

The Environmental Core Lab at AUB is an excellent analytical laboratory

USAID is active in Lebanon in sponsoring a lot of water treatment projects.

Aquarius - Water Treatment Contractor

Watermaster - Water Treatment Contractor

The AUB Dept of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Lebanon Clean and Green Directory

Birdlife and SPNL

IUCN is active in Lebanon

 

Compiled by Rami E. Kremesti M.Sc.

 

May 19, 2012

Nussbaumen, Switzerland