Makse is located in the central region of the Beqaa Valley and is home to around 7,000 Lebanese residents and 1,500 refugees. Amidst the ongoing socio-economic crisis, the increased demand on public services, coupled with diminished municipal capacities to sustainably meet residents’ essential needs – including solid waste management – has fueled tensions among residents. In response, USAID’s Community Support Program (CSP) is providing the municipality with metal bins to facilitate the effective disposal and collection of recyclable waste so that it can be sold to buyers for processing. To sustain this activity, CSP is training community members and workers to design and implement an awareness campaign on sorting from source, as well as to safely collect the recyclables and manage the temporary storage site. On June 24, 2022, CSP distributed all 56 metal bins across strategic locations in the village, and on the same day, held a town hall meeting at Makse Municipality with 67 representatives from the community to kickstart the project and discuss expected activities and results. Finally, in parallel to CSP’s intervention, the municipality launched the rehabilitation of a recyclables collection center, contributing towards worker safety.

“We look forward to working together to save our environment while supporting the municipality to earn additional revenues during these hard times,” stated Mrs. Mounia Souaid, Head of local NGO, Union of Progressive Women, CSP’s implementing partner for the awareness campaign.