Ziad Abichaker

Garbage piles up in a riverbed near Beirut in late 2015. The region's almost year-long trash crisis prompted a political crisis, but also the emergence of nascent recycling programs.

Never waste a good waste crisis: Beirut’s trash woes give birth to recycling

June 9, 2016Environment

Household recycling was virtually unknown in Lebanon until Beirut’s trash crisis began last year. That’s when the region’s only landfill shut down, people started dumping trash wherever they could, and one activist saw an opportunity for people to think differently about their waste.