The EU funded Water and Environment Support project (WES) will assist the Ministry of Environment with the improvement and updating of the Emission Limit Values (ELVs) for industrial emissions. It will do so by revising the existing guidelines for a number of industrial sectors and subsectors. With the start of this project on 4 March, WES kicked off its first activity in Lebanon.

The Lebanese Ministry of Environment already issued a set of decisions related to environmental conditions for the establishment and operation of industrial sectors. It drafted a set of guidelines for the food and beverages sector as well as for the construction sector. Currently the Ministry of Environment is working towards developing updated ELVs and in this framework it will receive support of the WES project. A team of international and national experts formed by Nikola Milutinovic, Jacques Chahine and Dominique Salameh, will provide comments and revise the drafted environmental guidelines for the establishment and operation of several industrial sectors.

It is envisioned that revised guidelines will be developed for the food sector, which includes the subsectors dairy production, slaughterhouses, cow farms, meat processing, and beverages production. For the construction sector guidelines for the sectors of construction and demolition waste, the stone cutting industry, the asphalt and concrete industry as well as paint production will be evaluated and updated.

According to Nikola Milutinovic, while revising the guidelines, the specific Lebanese circumstances like the size of the concerned industries, technologies used and types of processes will be taken into account.  Current practices applied, regarding air, waste and wastewater allowed emissions will be bore in mind. The aim for the Ministry of Environment is to publish the ten new guidelines for the selected industrial activities later this year.

For the WES project this is the first activity in Lebanon to commence. It is foreseen that later this year another technical assistance will start to tackle pollution of the Mediterranean Sea by combatting pollution from plastics. That activity is aiming at providing policy support to address single-use plastic items in Lebanon.

Photo: Industrial site in Qartaba, Lebanon