RECYCLE LEBANON
Established: Known for: How to get involved:
Early 2016 Beach clean-ups
Join their beach clean-ups and the community
71 131115, Recycle Lebanon
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Initiated by Joslin Kehdy, Recycle Lebanon was created as a response to Lebanon’s trash crisis, calling for community action through its #Diveintoaction events and collaborations for sustainable solutions and change. They aim to become a kind of syndicate of all issues and initiatives about the economy, society and environment concerning sustainable development. “Recycle Lebanon came out of a basic need. How can I make Lebanon better? What can I do? Who’s already doing what, where and how?” says Kehdy. “There are an abundance of initiatives working towards sustainable development. This needs to be accessible to people. With the launch of Recycle Lebanon’s hub, it will soon be easier to get involved on an individual level.” Recycle Lebanon started their action on the country’s beaches, organizing a series of clean ups, collecting waste washed up by the sea. They chose Nahr el Kalb beach as their first project with Zbeleh bala 7oudoud – a victim of the waste crisis with trash thrown into the valleys taken from the river into the sea, and back to the shorelines.
With its first public beach clean up held on 16 January, each edition is getting bigger, with 42 volunteers collecting 210 60 liter bags of waste in the last edition. Recycle Beirut, Arcenciel, Cedar Environmental and Catalyctic Action are collecting the waste Recycle Lebanon gathers and so far, 580 bags of plastic waste have been processed. Kehdy believes recycling is only part of the solution with awareness of waste production essential. “Rethink, refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, rot,” she says. “Sort at the source and say no to plastics, use re-useable bags and consume less single-use plastics. Small actions can make big impacts.”