Not that long ago, the city of Sidon (or Saida) in Lebanon moved its trash to the local Sidon dump, where the toxic landfill and trash site washed into the sea every winter. Sometimes dump trucks didn’t wait for the rains and dumped directly into the sea. Thanks to Saudi Arabia, which offered some $20 million USD to clean the Sidon dump, the deed is almost done.

Taking a cue from Israel in the south perhaps, the Sidon dump will be turned into a recreational area, much like Israel’s Hiriya garbage dump, and its landfill dump in Jaffa – both sites are now recreation spots for walking and picnicking.

The Sidon clean up is overseen by the United Nations Development Program, the Sidon Municipality and the Environment Ministry Lebanon.

Sidon is the third largest city in Lebanon.

The dump has been cleared of harmful gases, while garbage there has been seperated. A wave breaker has been installed to prevent winter’s stormy seas from reaching the dump. 

Some residents however, say the toxic fumes emanating from the clean up are worse than the dump site itself:

“36 year old Ahmad, who preferred not to give his real name, is a mechanic at the Industrial City and has lived near the waste-fill for most of his life. Almost one month ago, he moved out of his house and chose a location farther from the coast to protect his two young daughters from polluted air, which has been getting increasingly worse over the past two months.

He said this past August: “We don’t know the reasons behind the strong stench. We don’t know if it is dangerous to our health or not. But I felt the need to take my own precautions and moved out of the area. Many like me are following suit, but there are also many others who are financially incapable and are suffering extremely.”

As for the organic materials extracted from the waste, developers will be putting it aside to decompose for energy extraction purposes.

This video was taken before the clean up:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffvJcASvvAo[/youtube]

“The city will finally be able to get rid of its shameful garbage mountain and the site will be turned into an entertainment complex for its residents,” said UNDP resident representative Robert Watkins.

According to local media the landfill was established in 1982 and it contained somewhere between 50-60 percent of solid waste and 35-40 percent of biodegradable material.

Plans were made to close down the dump late 2012. Containing some two million cubic meters of waste, it would cave in during wet winter months and funnel garbage down to the sea and beaches of the city. Deadly fires took place there recently.

Anaerobic fermenting will produce energy from the site, much like Israel’s Hiriya garbage dump which produces biogas to power lighting there.

There are plans to build on Sidon (Saida) but local blogger Keep Lebanon Green thinks that it should be left alone once the clean up is done:

“Filling the sea with land, also known as “land reclamation” in order to build structures on it, has environmental consequences. It is a form of habitat destruction. Land reclamation disrupts eco-systems and kills marine life. What an environmental plan should focus on is rehabilitation, not using the site to build something new. We need to rehabilitate the polluted sea around the dump too, not destroy it by filling it with soil.

“Lebanon, it’s great that the dumpsite is finally going to be treated, but the land reclamation part of the plan has dire environmental consequences. Let us advocate for environmental rehabilitation of both the dump and the sea! We can do it, Lebanon!” the blogger writes.

More on garbage and pollution:
Pollution Costs Lebanon $500 Million a Year
Arrow Ecology Sorts Through Garbage for Gold
Going on a Picnic at Tel Aviv’s Garbage Mountain

The post Lebanon’s Toxic Sea-side Sidon Dump Gets Eco Makeover appeared first on Green Prophet.

Diamond Developers has announced plans to officially launch their latest project – a 120 acre green city – at the Sustainable Real Estate Conference to be held in Dubai next month. Reportedly inspired by the net zero UC Davis West Village campus in California, the city intends to produce 50 percent of its own renewable energy.

More village than city

Different facts are emerging about the size and scope of Diamond Developers’ Sustainable City, but  a moderate news report from The California Aggie suggests that the city will accommodate roughly 2,500 residents.

Which makes it more like a village than a city, but perhaps we’re being pedantic.

“After visiting UC Davis West Village during its initial development in 2010, Faris Saeed, a Middle Eastern housing developer, was inspired to create a sustainable city near Dubai in the United Arab Emirates,” the paper reports.

The West Village is reportedly the largest existing net zero [energy] community in the United States, and therefore a tangible example of what can be achieved when design, technology, finance and political will all join hands.

“The plan is a collaboration around the establishment of an environmental research institute and a social research center,” Suad Joseph, UC Davis professor of anthropology and women and gender studies, told the paper.

Joseph added that eventually UC Davis faculty will help to train professionals and students of a college that is planned to be constructed as a part of  Sustainable City.

Solarized and sustainable

Diamond Developer’s CEO Faris Saeed, who personally toured the UC Davis West Village last November, told local press that the company will unveil specific plans on May 1st at the real estate conference, which will be held at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Center.

“Each house will produce its own electricity by using solar panels,” according to Saeed, who added that “We have a sustainable transportation system to be used by the residents and their visitors to go around the city.”

(At one time it was suggested the alternative transportation strategy might include horses.)

An organic farm will produce local food, while a “green belt” of vegetation will provide shelter against sand storms.

And while it seems unfair to compare every new green development to Masdar City, and perhaps inadequate since Masdar has proven to be a multitiered organization with arms that stretch to all corners of the globe, it’s hard not to make the comparison.

Aware of this correlation, Saeed simply notes that it’s time for Dubai to shift to a greener development paradigm and he hopes his firm will set the benchmark not just for the emirate, but for the entire region.

Image adapted from Shutterstock vector of an Arab man and woman

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Exactly what will make the Mohammed VI Green City so green has yet to be established, though plans are underway to develop a 4km, 80 hectare corridor between this new development and Benguerir that will be planted with 50,000 trees.

Morocco’s press agency MAP reports that the megaproject will include “convenient infrastructure and an ecological space,” and will cater to the well-being, diversity and cultural and social welfare of its inhabitants.

The university will be built in two phases, according to MAP, and will include facilities for a wide range of programs crucial to the development of a healthy urban development. These include an engineering and industrial management program, green technologies and town planning, as well as sustainable development and architecture.

“This educational facility rests on different fundamentals including education, research and development, transfer of technologies, the adoption of innovative and promising projects as well as the proximity with the corporate world,” MAP reports.

Partnerships with leading engineering and science institutions in France and the United States, namely Ecole des Mines de Paris and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), lend further legitimacy to the university.

To this end, the King entered into two important agreements. The first is with the Ministry of Higher Education and Office Chérifien des Phosphates (OCP), which signals a budding relationship between the private education sector and what some activists caution is an unsustainable industry, and an additional agreement that outlines a working agreement between the Ecole des Mines de Paris and the OCP.

Whilst very few details have been published about the “Green City’s” specific attributes, such as what material will be used to construct the buildings and what kind of energy will be used, the project sounds much like another so-called “eco-city” in the Middle East, namely Masdar City.

Image of Morocco’s King Mohammed VI via About Middle East

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