Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September 1998, pages 29, 94

Beirut Bulletin

As Lebanon Recovers, Air Quality Deteriorates and Recycling Fails to Catch On

By Marilyn Raschka

George Zeytoun, ear, nose and throat specialist at the American University Hospital (AUH), summed up his opinions on the quality of air in Beirut with the suggestion, “Stay at home in an oxygen tank.”

The environment is a big issue in Lebanon. Big at least with the environmentalists and now with those in the medical field who are seeing more and more pollution-related problems in their patients.

Doctors report an alarming increase in respiratory problems. “We have recently noticed an upsurge of prolonged viral infections and a rise in respiratory problems or allergies in the upper and lower respiratory tracts—especially in children,” Zeytoun reports. The ingredients in Beirut’s polluted air are as follows: sulfur dioxide, dust, carbon monoxide, fluorocarbons, hydrocarbons, lead, organic acids, smoke and exhaust fumes. All are in high concentrations to boot.

Another AUH doctor, Nadim Kanj, reports seeing from his personal experience a steady increase since 1992 in breathing problems such as pneumonia and viral syndromes.

No studies have been done, but it is obvious that there is plenty of pollution. Looking down on Beirut from the mountains reveals a thick layer of smog over the city. And more pollution and less public hygiene means more viruses, more allergies.

Can this really be blamed on air pollution alone? Dr. Zeytoun says yes. “I attribute this to the environment because I am speaking of cases where no other cause is found except exposure to environmental toxic products.”

Air pollution has doubled the number of people with ailments—especially among children. Beirutis, the doctor warned, are going to be increasingly prone to colds, pneumonia, bronchitis and allergies.

So what to do if you can’t stay at home with an oxygen tank? Doctors call for a reduction in cars on the streets and for vehicles to be fitted with catalytic converters (none are). Just sitting in the endless traffic jams breathing emissions should be enough to convince people that something has to be done.

Air pollution also causes symptoms usually reserved for older people: poor concentration, loss of memory.

A pneumonogist at another Beirut hospital, Marie Louise Koussa Koniski, came to Lebanon two years ago from Canada. She reports seeing numerous cases of asthma, and severe ones.

Smoking is still a nearly universal habit among the Lebanese. Koniski said she was shocked at the number of smokers and the lack of awareness regarding the harmful effects of passive smoke.

The Marlboro man is the leading advertising icon. He’s portrayed on giant cut-out figures throughout the country. He’s even welcome in areas under Hezbollah control.

Awareness is an important word. When Lebanese émigrés gave their place of birth a second chance after the war, one mother decided against returning when her daughter, then six, went up to a Lebanese child who had thrown some candy wrappers on the ground and said, “Please don’t pollute Mother Earth.”

Parental role modeling isn’t exactly going well either. Teacher friends of mine work hard in the lower grades to instruct the children about public cleanliness. Litter campaigns are frequent and well done. But stand outside the school when the parents pick up their little dears. The first thing they do is hand the child a soft drink and a sandwich. This appeases the child while the parent inches along in the traffic jam—caused by school dismissal. When the sandwich is consumed the sandwich wrapper is tossed, by the parents, out of the window. The drink takes a little longer, and the parent—who knows better—waits till he or she is out of range of other cars. But it too gets tossed.

Solid waste disposal is a big problem in this use-and-toss society. Collection bins overflow. Poor people, who do most of the recycling, rip bags apart to get at items they can resell. Garbage ends up outside the bins where stray cats and dogs and, of course, rats graze.

Even the best intentions go astray. Good friends of mine are very environmentally conscious. Little did they know, until a neighbor pointed it out, that their housekeeper was tossing bags of garbage from their apartment balcony into the empty lot below.

People know better. The problem is to get them to do better. The empty lot next to my apartment in Beirut was used as a distribution center for Pepsi. Workers came and went all day long. No one threw garbage into the lot from the surrounding buildings. Then the property was sold and the men and the Pepsi disappeared. Garbage appeared.

But not much. Then bulldozers began digging deep to prep the land for a building site. The churned-up land was an open invitation. After all, it looked like a land fill. At night when the bulldozers were at rest, bags of garbage fell like missiles. In the morning the bulldozers, taking no notice, dug deeper and hauled out dirt and “dirt.”

It took weeks to dig the hole for the building, but when the contractors laid out the reinforced steel and began pouring the concrete the missile barrage stopped, completely. People knew better so they did better.

In March, Minister of the Environment Akram Chehayeb conceded failure in his ministry’s attempt to start up a neighborhood recycling program. Eight streets were targeted in the pilot project. Bins were conveniently placed and labeled to make it clear which recyclable items went where. However, they were labeled in English. As one critic put it, “I wonder if they [the ministry] expected all the residents to be Cambridge graduates.”

Many bins were stolen within a week of the project’s kick off. The areas were “rebinned” and the bins were restolen.

The American University of Beirut (AUB) has had recycling bins for ages. But walk around the Oval, a grassy garden where students lounge between classes. It is covered in litter by early afternoon. A professor friend of mine takes the time to pick up the litter on the steps leading to her office building on a daily basis, but she gets discouraged.

In March a symposium was held to discuss Lebanon’s priorities. One of them was the environment. A participating educator had the inevitable Lebanese solution. She wants to see a diploma of higher studies on the environment established,“to produce specialists who can plan for the future,” she said.

Inspectors would be trained to monitor the degree of pollution and its impact on health. Then, too, there would be an environment techniques course to train graduates to work in preservation of the environment.

And would these inspectors ride around in cars equipped with catalytic converters? Or, even better, would they just do their monitoring on their environmentally friendly feet?