Anera Inaugurates Waste Sorting Facility to Serve Villages in Akkar, Lebanon

March 15, 2017 | American Near East Refugee Aid (Anera) and the municipality of Mashha in Akkar, Lebanon inaugurated a waste sorting facility that will address the trash crisis in the area. The ceremony was attended by Anera’s Vice President of Philanthropy Maggie Schmitz Foster, Mayor of Mashha Khaled Al Zouhbi, members of Mashha’s municipal council, program officers and managers from Anera Lebanon, and a group of volunteers from Mashha who supported in program implementation.

The municipality of Mashha invested in the construction works of the sorting facility, located far from residential areas in the village. Anera, through its donor the Ajram Family Foundation, contributed to the installation of all equipment in the facility, trained municipality workers and led a village-wide campaign on environmental awareness and proper recycling practices.

The campaign included the distribution of two recycling bins to each of the 1,200 households in Mashha, along with awareness sessions on the importance of recycling and the long-term effects of waste dumping on health and the environment. A group of 33 volunteers followed up with residents to ensure that waste was sorted properly.

The facility will serve all 9,500 residents in Mashha, of which about 3,000 are Syrian refugees. In addition, the facility has the capacity to receive additional volumes of waste from nearby villages in the future.

Throughout 2016, Anera implemented pilot solid waste management projects in Mashha village and in Nahr El Bared camp. The successes of these projects has resulted in similar larger scale projects in additional localities.

For more information:

Bayan Itani
Communications Officer
+961 1 382590 ext. 107
+961 3 024587
[email protected]

About Anera
Since 1968, Anera has been a leading provider of development, health, education, and employment programs to vulnerable communities and impoverished families throughout the Middle East. Anera reaches the region’s most vulnerable people with health, education and economic development programs and provides humanitarian and emergency relief in times of crisis. In 2016, the relief and development agency delivered over $57 million in programs to people in Lebanon and Palestine.