Towards a Decentralised Waste management Integrated Response (TaDWIR)


Summary

TaDWIR project is designed to support Lebanon’s waste management systems in a time in which the country is plagued by multiple crises. After the major waste-crisis of 2015, Lebanon has tried to regain control over its failing services and infrastructure in this field. However, the risk remains very high in case the support provided by international donors and organizations come to a standstill in this critical period which could paralyze the sector and root to an aggravated crisis.  

Therefore, The EU-UNDP TaDWIR project is addressing this risk by aiming to improve the overall environmental and financial sustainability of Lebanon’s waste management system. The specific objectives are to reduce volumes of waste that go to landfills, to improve qualities of waste that go to waste-facilities in general and to upgrade national systems for governance and cost coverage of managing municipal solid waste.

The project is targeting the following streams: Hazardous Waste (Hazardous HCW, E-waste and batteries), Municipal Waste (Mixed Municipal Waste), Non-municipal waste (Cardboard and Paper Waste, Slaughterhouse Waste, Other Special Wastes) and for overall SWM system improvement (Full Cost Coverage).

Background

The conjunction of the political and socio-economic crises, and the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted access to and quality of services such as health, education, electricity, water, and solid waste management. Solid waste management in Lebanon remains a highly challenging area – and the country has faced several major solid waste crises during the last 10 years. 
Lebanon’s solid waste management challenges are rooted in the lack of a sustainable approach without an integrated solid waste management plan which leads to fragmented interventions and gaps. It also remains as a key driver of tensions, particularly between refugees and host communities and can sometimes lead to eviction threats and actual evictions for refugees.

Major achievements

  • Development of a baseline assessment for the healthcare waste sector.
  • Initiation of the assessment of future market opportunities for the use of Lebanese RDF including financial, social and environmental feasibility and scenario evaluations.
  • Initiation of the National governance and cost recovery frameworks for the management of municipal solid waste.
  • Launching of bids targeting different waste streams (E-waste and Batteries, Green waste, cardboards and papers and slaughterhouse). The following studies will also tackle the site selection for potential interventions. 
Project outcome

The main outcomes of the project, taking into account the strategy for each waste stream, are as follows:

Outcome 1: To reduce hazardous waste going to waste facilities, landfills and/or being dumped in environmentally unsound manner (Hazardous HCW, E-waste and batteries) 
Outcome 2: To improve the management of municipal waste by improving current waste facilities and their products and to set first steps towards composting municipal waste (Mixed municipal waste and municipal green waste). 
Outcome 3: To secure recycling of already at-source segregated non-municipal waste and prevent it from being mixed with municipal or other wastes (Green Municipal waste, Cardboard and Paper waste, Slaughterhouse waste, and other special wastes). 
Outcome 4: To improve the governance of the waste sector.

GESI Component (Gender Equality and Social Inclusion):

The project is raising awareness on solid waste subjects through intensive participation campaigns to promote and foster citizens engagement as key actors in the field. The public needs to be informed on the national environmental issues and the beneficials effects that the project is bringing to the sector in order to ensure social sustainability.

In terms of gender equality, the project promotes the participation of women equally as men in the awareness raising programme. Moreover, all assessments and data collected for the studies conducted within the project, the gender criteria are disaggregated to the extent possible, prioritizing the analysis of gender dynamics in waste generation and management activities while focusing on women’s empowerment in the sector.