LOST's Clean-Up Campaign in Dar Al-Wasaa to continue in Months to Come

The Lebanese Organization for Studies and Training (LOST) after several meetings with the local community activists and stakeholders in the village of Dar Al-Wasaa found solutions for the waste crisis, which aroused due to the lack of municipality and strategy plan to enforce waste management.
The founder of LOST, Dr. Ramy Lakkis, believed that the best way to bring about change would be through a partnership with the local community.  LOST members had several meetings with the villagers in the LOST center and in Dar Al-Wasaa. The meetings concluded with a three month long initiative that allowed LOST to provide the village with 106 waste containers which were distributed throughout.
 The villagers, enthusiastic that they launched a campaign to clean their village from waste and to eliminate the random ex-landfills started donating resources. One of the activists in the village provided the village with a pick-up truck to collect the waste in the containers. LOST offered to pay for the truck driver and the fuel and the other villagers voluntarily paid for the workers in charge of collecting the waste and taking it to Baalbek Modern Landfill. To sustain the efforts made by the community for the clean-up, special posters were placed around the village with messages to ban throwing waste in areas that are not designated.
 Dar Al-Wasaa lies in the Western Mountain Chain of Lebanon is described as a touristic village; rich in water and green areas. The initiative to rid pollution from Dar Al-Wasaa and other villages is now under discussion between LOST and local activists to turn it into a permanent solution.