Waste management in times of war

War does not merely destroy infrastructure and upend daily life. It reorganizes how a state’s systems function and how materials move.

One such material is waste. In Lebanon, as the escalating war drives displacement and disrupts essential services, the volume, type, and geography of waste are shifting.

What appears as a waste problem is, in fact, a question of system design. A circular economy offers a framework for addressing this challenge, seeking to keep materials in use for as long as possible by reducing waste, reusing resources, and cycling them back into production.

In times of crisis, however, the systems that enable this continuity are often the first to fragment. Yet the very materials generated during conflict—rubble, plastics, metals, and packaging—could, if properly managed, be reintroduced as inputs rather than discarded as waste.

The question, then, is not whether these materials can be reused, but why they fail to be recovered.

Fragments of a circular system

For Ziad Abi Chaker, a Lebanese environmental entrepreneur, the circular economy is a critical framework for rethinking how resources are used over time. Often reduced to recycling and waste reduction, Abi Chaker instead describes it as a full redesign of how the economy functions.

“A circular economy is a monumental task,” he explains.

You have to take the pillars of a traditional economy and upgrade them so it becomes less polluting and less damaging to the environment.

One such pillar is infrastructure: electricity, transport, and water. A circular economy builds on these elements, while adding another layer that considers what happens to a product after it has served its initial purpose. A plastic lid, for instance, is not just packaging, but a material whose next use must be designed in advance.

Lebanon, paradoxically, has long operated with fragments of a circular approach, as resource scarcity has historically pushed people to extract more value from materials.

“It’s an economy of the poor,” Abi Chaker says. “If you’re wealthy, waste is something to get rid of. If you’re poor, it is a resource you want to maximize.”

This logic, though present in practice, has never been formalized into a system. What exists instead is an informal layer, with scavengers recovering plastic and aluminum, and reuse occurring through ad hoc, small-scale initiatives. Yet without adequate infrastructure or a coordinated policy, this does not amount to a circular economy, but remains confined to individual effort.

A history of short-term solutions

Lebanon’s modern waste system was not designed to be circular. It was designed to make waste disappear, taking the form of a largely centralized waste management structure.

As Abi Chaker explains, the priority in the years following the civil war was immediate and highly visible: clear the streets and restore a sense of order. Collection was centralized yet outsourced and waste was moved out of Beirut’s central urban areas, first to the Bourj Hammoud landfill on the city’s northeastern edge, then to the Naameh landfill in the Chouf mountains, and later to coastal sites such as Costa Brava in Beirut’s southern suburbs and Jdeideh in Metn, serving the eastern outskirts and Keserwan.

Each iteration followed the same underlying logic: concentrate, relocate, and defer. Long-term planning was repeatedly sidelined in favor of short-term containment.

As Abi Chaker puts it, since the end of the civil war, waste policy has largely amounted to “kicking the can down the road,” with decisions calibrated to last only until landfills filled, contracts expired, or public pressure mounted, rather than to establish durable infrastructure.

The model was further shaped by real estate incentives, with landfills viewed not only as sites of disposal but as opportunities for land reclamation, later covered, repurposed, and reintegrated into urban development. In some cases, this logic backfired. At what is now Zeituna Bay on Beirut’s waterfront, the area was once used as a wartime dumping ground for household, hospital, and construction waste, and when later redeveloped by Solidere, the weakened soil proved unsuitable for high-rise construction.

The system’s fragility became undeniable in 2015, when protests from nearby residents over unbearable odors forced the closure of the Naameh landfill, triggering a nationwide crisis. With no alternative in place, waste accumulated in the streets of Beirut and Mount Lebanon.

Today, more than a decade after the 2015 crisis, that model is reaching its limits. With constrained government funding, the system continues to rely on a network of landfills, most notably Costa Brava, serving Beirut and parts of Mount Lebanon, and Jdeideh, covering the eastern suburbs and Keserwan. Jdeideh is expected to close by the end of 2026, while Costa Brava has only a few years remaining.

This is the system the war has inherited.

War as a material shock

The war has not simply intensified Lebanon’s waste crisis. It has altered its composition and distribution.

New waste streams are emerging, including construction debris from damaged buildings, medical waste from overstretched healthcare systems, and large volumes of packaging tied to humanitarian aid. At the same time, other forms of waste are declining. Displaced households consume less in conventional ways—less cooking, fewer goods—while reliance on packaged, single-use items increases.

The result is not a straightforward rise in waste, but a shift in what is produced, where it accumulates, and how it is handled.

This is not unusual in crisis settings. Consumption patterns compress, while disposability expands. Materials concentrate in new locations, particularly in urban centers absorbing displaced populations, placing uneven pressure on already limited waste systems.

Empirical evidence reflects similar dynamics. Assessments by the United Nations Environment Programme show that conflict environments tend to generate surges in debris and hazardous waste while disrupting existing collection systems. At the same time, research from the International Solid Waste Association finds that humanitarian responses often increase dependence on single-use materials, reinforcing short-term disposal practices.

War, in this sense, does not simply overwhelm waste systems. It alters the conditions under which they operate.

Disruption and missed opportunity

A circular economy depends on continuity. Materials must be collected, sorted, transported, and processed for reuse, each step relying on steady access to fuel, electricity, and coordination.

In wartime conditions, however, the system shifts toward immediacy. As Abi Chaker notes, collection slows, processing capacity contracts, and coordination weakens, narrowing the objective to a single priority: removal.

Materials that might otherwise retain value are instead redirected toward disposal, whether through landfills, informal dumping, or simple accumulation.

Yet the materials themselves remain inherently usable.

“One of the pillars of a circular economy is having infrastructure to recycle construction and demolition waste,” Abi Chaker says. Rubble, he explains, is particularly workable. It can be processed into gravel and reused in sidewalks, roads, and basic construction, without the environmental risks associated with organic waste. But doing so requires planning, energy, and coordination.

Lebanon has encountered this gap before. After the 2006 war, debris was partially processed, with steel recovered for reuse, but no broader system was developed to handle such materials at scale.

For Abi Chaker, the constraint is not technical, but preparatory. Circular approaches depend on capacity that must exist in advance, including facilities, logistics, and policy frameworks that enable recovery and reuse.

“For a country like Lebanon, where we know we live in a very volatile environment, someone should have thought to invest in this,” he says.

We should be telling the private sector, if you invest in construction and demolition waste recycling, we will pay you for every ton you process. It can be profitable.

Without that groundwork, the opportunity remains largely untapped.

A circular model in practice

Off the Émile Eddé street in Hamra, a community initiative known as the EcoHub serves as a striking example of how circular principles can operate under constraint.

Founded by the local NGO Ahla Fawda in 2014, the EcoHub is built around an “ecobank” model in which individuals exchange recyclable materials for credit used to access goods. For founder Imane Assaf, the logic is simple: “We sell in trash, not cash.”

Since the outbreak of the war, the space has shifted toward relief efforts, but its emphasis on sustainability and its commitment to a circular economy has remained intact.

Each day, around 125 tickets are issued to displaced families, tied to ID systems that regulate access and allow return visits every two weeks. In one corner of the hub, displaced persons can sort through donated and upcycled clothing, selecting two items for adults and three for children, alongside toys and books. Just steps away, in what staff call the “food hut,” they can collect dry and canned goods, as well as basic household items such as cleaning supplies.

The hub has also established a relief kitchen serving three schools, a cinema shelter, and walk-ins. Meals are prepared and distributed using reusable plates and cutlery, which are washed on-site to minimize waste, and the operation is coordinated with government authorities through daily reporting on the number and location of meals served.

Around 20 to 25 volunteers pass through the EcoHub each day, many of them displaced adolescents from the nearby Capuchin school, now functioning as a shelter. Among them is 13-year-old Jouad from Zefta, who arrived in Beirut two days after the war began. Four weeks later, he moves through the space with ease, helping pack food and manage supplies. In the kitchen, an assistant chef displaced from the south works alongside women from Dahiyeh, many of whom have also been forced from their homes.

For Assaf, this collective effort is central to how the space functions. “This is a time where we should work together to survive,” she says.

Beyond immediate relief, the EcoHub continues to operate as a site of production. Its Ecolab supports small-scale upcycling, repurposing glass, plastic, and wood pallets, while inviting schools to engage directly with these processes. In one initiative, Assaf’s son Ziad, a sound engineer by training, works with displaced children to transform PVC pipes into musical instruments.

“The beauty of the space is that anyone can come and be a part of it,” Assaf says. “Anybody who needs anything, the place is open.”

What war reveals

War does not create systems, it exposes them.

In Lebanon, it has revealed a waste system built on removal rather than reuse, on centralization rather than localized management, and on short-term fixes rather than long-term design.

Circular economy principles offer an alternative, but only if they are embedded before the crisis begins. In wartime, priorities narrow: food must be distributed, waste must be cleared, and systems shift toward what is fastest, not what is efficient.

Abi Chaker’s focus is less on crisis response than on what must precede it. He points to the need for clearly defined roadmaps for infrastructure, including waste, energy, and water, set by an independent board of technical experts and carried forward across political cycles.

As demonstrated by the EcoHub, circularity can persist under pressure, but only at the margins. Without infrastructure, coordination, and policy, it cannot scale to meet the demands of a national system under stress.

This is not a failure of the model, but the absence of the conditions required to sustain it.