BEIRUT: Sukleen cleaning company is woven into the fabric of Beirut. The men in green can be found on almost every corner of the maze of roads and highways that make up Lebanon’s capital. For the last 20 years Sukleen – and later its partner Sukomi – have been contracted to keep the city clean and yet have consistently been sources of controversy. From questionable public contracts to poor environmental practices, the company has come under scrutiny on numerous occasions.
A crisis last January thrust the company into the spotlight when the Naameh landfill – where Sukleen and its partner dump all of Beirut and Mount Lebanon’s collected waste – was blocked by protesters. This forced Sukleen to stop collections and left the city flooded with waste.
This pushed the usually quiet company to issue a public statement in The Daily Star, set up several social media sites and launch a heavily advertised recycling campaign in order to clear its name.
Sukleen’s contract was expected to expire by Jan. 17, but was extended by the Cabinet for another renewable three months in line with a plan to treat solid waste.
Local mayors said in a news conference Friday that they had called off plans to stage a protest on Jan. 17 against the delay in the closure of the landfill.
They voiced their support for the government’s plan that would eventually see the closure of the controversial landfill.
Meanwhile, The Daily Star spoke with Sukleen, environmentalists and experts to get a background on the company that keeps Beirut clean.
The company started out as Sukkar Engineering, founded by Maysarah Sukkar in 1968, and today Sukleen and its sister company Sukomi are under the umbrella of holding group Averda.
Averda operates in several different capitals across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe, such as Abu Dhabi and Rabat, Morocco.
Sukleen initially won a contract to collect the waste in Beirut in 1994, which was expanded in an emergency waste-management plan implemented in 1997. Under the 1997 contract Sukleen’s responsibilities were extended to collecting waste and treating it at plants in Karantina and Amrousieh, while Sukomi was contracted to manage the then-newly established Naameh landfill.
The contract was extended under much opposition from some ministers in 2006 and 2010, with guidelines that were never implemented.
The contracts are the initial source of people’s criticism of Sukleen.
“The issue [with Sukleen] ... is the price,” Paul Abi Rached, head of environmental NGO Lebanon Eco Movement, told The Daily Star. “We are paying a very, very high price, and that price is taken from the municipality’s budget.”
According to numbers from Sweep-Net, an organization that provides information on solid waste in the region, the collection and disposal of waste in Beirut and Mount Lebanon currently costs $130 per ton of garbage. This is almost three times the $38 per ton paid in Amman, Jordan and astronomically larger than the $20 per ton paid in Cairo.
When the contract was renewed in 1996, the cost of Sukleen’s contract was transferred from the Council of Development and Reconstruction to the Independent Municipal Fund, the pot of money that the state distributes to municipalities. Independent research and consultancy firm Information International estimated that 40 percent of the budget for municipalities within Averda’s jurisdiction was consumed by this contract in 2009.
“If you ask a municipality, ‘Why are you not doing a project and development?’ They tell you, ‘We don’t have money,’” Abi Rached said. “This high price is affecting the development in Lebanon.”
So why is Sukleen charging Lebanon so much more?
Sukleen told The Daily Star that it was difficult to compare contracts as Sukleen offers Beirut a range of services. “In some regions, waste companies collect but do not treat, others collect and directly dump in dumpsters,” it said.
“In our case, our deal is divided in three parts: collection, treatment and landfill. So the paid amount per ton for Sukleen’s contract covers these three parts, that are collection, treatment and landfilling.”
Critics say that Sukleen was offered these contracts with little to no competition due to the fact that the management of Sukleen wields strong influence among politicians.
Due to its monopoly of waste management in Beirut, many argue that Averda has a responsibility to expand recycling in the area. According to Sweep-Net, Sukleen currently only recycles approximately 20 percent of Beirut’s waste.
Sukleen told The Daily Star that they have been actively involved in recycling for nearly two decades.
“For the past 18 years, we have always had recycling igloos [waste depositories] in more than 40 locations,” they said. “We have more than 1,200 companies and schools who use our free recycling program, Red and Blue, allowing us to educate, instigate and follow-up on the ‘sorting at source’ effectiveness.”
However, Sukleen’s management said they only set up a department dedicated to promoting recycling in late 2013/early 2014. Sources familiar with their work say that this is too little too late.
“They had 17 years to work on promoting recycling at home, as the initial contracts were signed in 1996 and 1998,” said environmentalist Mohammad, not his real name.
“They never did anything as a corporate creature to actually promote that.”
The way in which Sukleen executes its recycling programs has also drawn scrutiny, as some environmentalists say that they mix separated recyclable goods with regular trash which renders much of it useless. Sukleen vehemently denies this.
Mohammad said the most interesting point about Sukleen’s recycling practices in Lebanon is that they are far inferior to their operations elsewhere.
“Sukleen operates in about 12 countries, and in other countries they are doing exactly the awareness [programs], know-how, sifting, recycling that they can easily do here in my opinion.”
He holds the state responsible for not holding Sukleen accountable.
Sukleen told The Daily Star that they operate in each country based on the terms of their specific contracts and are fulfilling what the state requires of them in Lebanon.
Dr. Mazen Haydar, an engineering professor at the Lebanese American University, where he teaches a solid waste management class, said that this lack of accountability extends to the mishandling of the Naameh landfill which Sukomi operates.
He said that the Environment Ministry should be hiring a neutral consultant to verify the level of hazardous gases, such as methane, being released from the Naameh landfill that may cause locals to contract cancer. This information should also be made publically available, he added.
An infographic about Sukleen’s waste-management cycle says that they do test the gases emitted from the landfill monthly, but Haydar said the government needs to release figures on these tests. Residents living by the landfill say that many of the locals have contracted cancer due to the toxic fumes, and are demanding it shut immediately.
When the landfill does eventually shut, the Cabinet will open up Beirut’s waste-management contract for biddings, which could mean an end to the men in green all over Beirut. When asked if they would bid on the new tender, Sukleen were coy:
“Once the TOR [Terms of Reference] is released, we, as well as other companies will review the terms and conditions, and decide whether we participate in the new tender accordingly.”
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