Source: UNIC
Security & Justice
Lebanon’s Border Villages Face Renewed Devastation Amid Israeli Withdrawal
The Israeli army withdrew from the southern Lebanese village of Bani Hayyan on Friday morning, two days after entering the area in the Marjayoun district. According to local reports, Israeli forces demolished multiple homes as they retreated.
Friday, December 20, 2024
Interview Set to Shed Light on Mossad’s Decade-Long Covert Operation Against Hezbollah
In a highly anticipated episode of CBS’s 60 Minutes, recently retired Mossad agents provide unprecedented insights into a decade-long covert operation targeting Hezbollah. The agents, whose identities remain concealed with masks and altered voices, share with journalist Lesley Stahl the intricate details of their mission to sabotage Hezbollah’s communications network.
Friday, December 20, 2024
Opinion
Lebanon After the Assads
The United States has important equities in Lebanon, including a desire for a generally friendly government’s economic and political stability; security cooperation; long-standing relations with the large Christian community in Lebanon and Lebanese diaspora in the United States; and ultimately peace between Israel and Lebanon within a broader regional settlement. Achieving these objectives will require navigating a tumultuous period in the country’s history following a war between Hezbollah and Israel that has devastated a large part of the country, exacerbating Lebanon’s already challenging economic conditions. But perhaps the most important dynamic will be how a likely Sunni-dominated state of uncertain composition in Syria will differ in its intentions toward Lebanon from the previous Alawite-led minoritarian Assad regime.
Thursday, December 19, 2024
Europe’s Syrian Dilemma
The news of the sudden and unexpected demise of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria has met a mixed response in Europe. The jubilation that a murderous dictator and close ally of Russia and Iran has fallen is not just good for the Syrian people but serves as a morale booster for Eastern Europeans wondering whether Russia can be defeated
Wednesday, December 18, 2024
Sports
Cristiano Ronaldo Unveils New Private Jet Worth $73 Million
Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the richest global athletes, has unveiled his upgraded private jet reportedly worth $73 million. With its top-notch design, exceptional speed and range of 7500 nautical miles, the Gulfstream G650 is among the fastest jets in the world.
Monday, December 16, 2024
Guardiola Accepts Man City May Need to Sign More Players to Cope with Schedule
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola believes he will need a bigger squad to handle soccer’s ever-expanding fixture schedule.
Saturday, December 14, 2024
Friday 30 September 2022 16:40:48
In Lebanon, Restaurants Green Their Businesses to Reduce Waste
"Generating profit might be easy, but it is hard to reach a point where you are proud of your work," says Aline Kamakian, 53, owner of Mayrig Restaurant in Beirut, Lebanon.
Over the past nine years, Kamakian has been working on reducing the environmental footprint of her business, and today she is transforming Mayrig into a zero-waste project with passion, perseverance, and hard work.
Instead of throwing away leftovers, plastics, and glass bottles together in landfills, Kamakian transforms food waste into compost that nourishes plants and plastics and glass into new useful items despite the challenges.
According to a United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report, globally, 17 per cent of all food produced each year, amounting to 931 million tonnes, is wasted from households, retail establishments and the food service industry.
An estimated 3.1 billion people worldwide do not have a healthy diet, and some 828 million people go hungry. The number of people experiencing hunger has increased by over 100 million due to the pandemic prompting the need for urgent to reduce food loss and waste.
From a father's dream to a mother's recipe
Kamakian launched Mayrig in 2003 to fulfill her father's dream of having a restaurant that serves authentic Armenian food. She had been working with Armenian mothers on creating recipes and platters and decided to call the restaurant "Mayrig," which means mother in Armenian.
"The restaurant's name salutes mothers for their efforts to preserve Armenian culture and traditions, and the business aims to support Armenian mothers by offering them job opportunities and ways to generate profit," Kamakian explains.
Kamakian has been raising awareness amongst her employees on the importance of working towards greening her restaurant. "When we started sorting, my employees thought the extra tasks were inefficient and exhausting. But, with time, they started realizing how important this was to Lebanon's environment. Today, they are keen on sorting and treating waste," she notes.
After the financial crisis hit Lebanon in 2019, the cost of sorting, composting and recycling became an extra burden for Kamakian's business, and greening Mayrig was compromised for the sake of other priorities.
"The high expense of transporting the food waste into the composting facilities threatened the sustenance of the initiative," she says.
Supporting a circular economy
Before giving up on her dream, Kamakian sought funding opportunities. Fortunately, UN Lebanon, through the UNEP Regional Office for West Asia based in Beirut, was looking for restaurants in the Mar Mikhael – Gemmayze area to partner with in reducing the waste problem in Lebanon.
Under this project, which is part of the SwitchMed II Programme funded by the European Union and implemented in collaboration with local civil society organization NUSANED, the UN is supporting Mayrig by collecting their food waste. "I no longer have to worry about managing the composting of food waste because someone is taking care of that," Kamakian points out.
Under the same project, the UNEP Regional Office is partnering with seven other restaurants in the same area by providing, through NUSANED, advisory services and technical support around plastic waste management, food waste management, greening restaurants, and ways for allowing circular businesses to flourish.
In addition to restaurants, the UN is working with households to raise awareness of the importance of plastic prevention, reuse and recycling and incentivize them to contribute to a circular economy.
UNEP research shows that food loss and waste is having a major impact on the climate crisis and accounts for 8–10 per cent of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. When disposed of in landfills, much of this waste is converted into methane, a greenhouse gas known for its global warming potential, 25 times greater than that of carbon dioxide.
"For each kilogram of plastics that households put in our bins, they receive points that eventually become shopping vouchers at local businesses in the area, and this is one of the incentive mechanisms we will be using for the purpose of encouraging waste prevention under this project," says Rasha Sukkarieh, NUSANED Project Manager.
"In this way, we are supporting families by increasing their purchasing power and local businesses by promoting their sales, as well as creating a circular and more sustainable economy in the area," she adds.
Today, Mayrig alone produces around 20Kgs of food waste and 4 to 7 Kg of plastic per day. In a country struggling with waste management, Kamakian hopes this initiative would reduce the negative impact of restaurants on the environment.
"If you multiply these numbers by 3000, which is the estimated number of restaurants in Lebanon, you can imagine what all this plastic and waste are doing to our environment and health when dumped in the sea and on land," Kamakian notes.
In addition to reducing Mayrig's environmental footprint, Kamakian relies on recycling to decorate her restaurant. She is turning wine bottles into colourful decorative chandeliers hung on the ceiling that cannot be missed when you enter the place. She also decorates her terrace with a green wall made from recycled plastic.
For Kamakian, protecting the environment is vital for sustaining her business. "When you protect the environment, you encourage tourism, attract new businesses, and sustain your business, it's a cycle!" she says.
