Waste raises concerns about toxicity
The Daily Star
July 07, 2007
Environment hotline
BEIRUT: Plastic waste from the Beirut's Normandy landfill continues to be dumped in several areas across Lebanon, raising fears among Lebanese about the toxicity of the materials, said a report published in this month's Environment and Development magazine. The waste was originally intended to help shape a spacious agricultural venue in the Chouf region of Sibline.
The Environment Ministry decided to transfer the plastic waste to Sibline for the proposed venue after conducting tests and impact assessments on the Sibline project. Since that decision, however, the same waste has wound up in the landfills of several towns and villages, including Sidon, Zahrani, Bhamdoun, Sofar, Sharon, and Hamana.
The situation subsequently led the Nature Without Frontiers Association, the Sharon Agricultural Cooperative and the Sofar Municipality to raise concerns about the dumping.
"The locations where waste is being dumped clearly shows that such shipments are not innocent, especially [since] they are being thrown near tourist attractions," said Mahmoud Ahmadieh, head of Nature Without Frontiers.
Municipalities in the Chouf area worked hard to enhance agricultural spaces in the region, "and not to transform their villages into large dumpsters," added the head of the Sharon Agricultural Cooperative Shawqi Banna.
Additionally, although the town of Bhamdoun succeeded in getting rid of a large portion of the mistakenly transferred waste, even larger quantities are still buried in the soil of the mountainous village.
The waste, randomly deposited throughout Bhamdoun's natural surroundings, has partially filled Bhamdoun's well-known valley, plugged up its waterways and caused drastic changes for the local agricultural sector.
A laboratory analysis conducted at the American University of Beirut (AUB) demonstrated that the waste being dumped at the Sibline project and in other areas all consisted of a non-toxic blend of plastic materials and earth.
The analysis, however, also raised several questions about why the plastic waste was being shipped to regions where no clear-cut developmental projects are being conducted.
Professor Nagi Kodeih - the head of the Service for the Prevention from the Impacts of Technologies and Natural Disasters at the Ministry of Environment - said AUB lab results of samples from waste shipments showed that the soil of regions where wastes were being dumped contained "frightening amounts of toxic materials, including Vanadium, Cobalt, Arsenic, Uranium and Mercury."
However, Environment and Development magazine dismissed claims made during the show Al-Fassad (Corruption) on New Television, which discussed waste shipments from Normandy. The magazine said Kodeih skewed lab results by using the Method Detection Limit (MDL) technique rather than the commonly used Highest Allowed Average metal detection method.
"Rather than measuring the true quantities of materials in the soil, MDL gives the lowest quantity of materials the used detector can perceive," it said.
Kodeih's interpretation raised panic among the Lebanese, the magazine added. "While personalized interpretations work well for philosophy and literature, scientific data cannot be interpreted in several different ways or else we can't call them scientific anymore," the magazine said. - Environment Hotline, The Daily Star
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