Lebanese Recycle Glass from Beirut Blast

A glassblower forms glass at factory, which is recycling the broken glass as a result of the Beirut explosion, in the northern Lebanese port city of Tripoli on August 25, 2020. (Photo by JOSEPH EID / AFP)
A glassblower forms glass at factory, which is recycling the broken glass as a result of the Beirut explosion, in the northern Lebanese port city of Tripoli on August 25, 2020. (Photo by JOSEPH EID / AFP)
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Lebanese Recycle Glass from Beirut Blast

A glassblower forms glass at factory, which is recycling the broken glass as a result of the Beirut explosion, in the northern Lebanese port city of Tripoli on August 25, 2020. (Photo by JOSEPH EID / AFP)
A glassblower forms glass at factory, which is recycling the broken glass as a result of the Beirut explosion, in the northern Lebanese port city of Tripoli on August 25, 2020. (Photo by JOSEPH EID / AFP)

Standing in a pile of broken glass in northern Lebanon, a man heaved shovel-loads of shards -- retrieved from Beirut after the massive explosion at its port -- into a red-hot furnace.

Melted down at a factory in the second city Tripoli, they re-emerged as molten glass ready to be recycled into traditional slim-necked water jugs.

The August 4 port explosion ripped through countless glass doors and windows when it laid waste to whole Beirut neighborhoods, killing at least 190 people and wounding thousands more.

Volunteers, non-governmental groups and entrepreneurs have tried to salvage at least part of the tons of glass that littered the streets, some of it through recycling at Wissam Hammoud's family's glass factory.

"Here we have glass from the Beirut explosion," said Hammoud, deputy head at the United Glass Production Company (Uniglass), as several men sorted through a mound of shards outside the building.
"Organizations are bringing it to us so that we can remanufacture it," AFP quoted the 24-year-old as saying.

As workers washed and stacked jars behind him, Hammoud said between 20 and 22 tons of glass had been brought to the factory, a hive of rhythmic activity centered around the furnace that burns at 900-1,200 degrees Celsius (1,650-2,190 Fahrenheit).

Nearby, three men produced jars stamped out of a mold in a carefully choreographed sequence, while another two handled the more delicate process of blowing and forming the traditional Lebanese pitchers.

"We work 24 hours a day," Hammoud said. "We can't stop because stopping costs too much money."

Ziad Abichaker, CEO of environmental engineering company Cedar Environmental, has spearheaded multiple glass recycling initiatives in Lebanon.

In the first days after the blast, he teamed up with civil-society organizations and a host of volunteers to come up with a plan to keep as much glass as possible out of landfills already overburdened by a decades-old solid waste crisis.

"We decided that at least part of the shattered glass... our local industries should benefit from as a raw material," Abichaker told AFP.

"We're diverting glass from ending up in the landfill, we're supplying our local industries with free raw material," he added.

According to him, more than 5,000 tons of glass was shattered by the explosion.

From mid-August to September 2, almost 58 tons were sent for reuse at Uniglass and Koub/Golden Glass in Tripoli.

Abichaker said he hoped, with funding, to bring the total to 250 tons.

At the volunteer hub dubbed the Base Camp in Beirut's hard-hit Mar Mikhael district, young men and women kitted out with sturdy shoes, masks and heavy gloves sort the glass, pulling bits of detritus out of the piled shards under a scorching sun.

Anthony Abdel Karim, who months before the blast had launched an upcycling glass project called Annine Fadye or "Empty Bottle" in Arabic, coordinates the operations.

We have "mountains of waste that are piling up in Beirut, they're mixed with everything. Glass and rubble and metal are mixed with organic waste... and this is not healthy," he said.

"We don't have proper recycling in Lebanon."

Abdel Karim was drawn to recycling glass after seeing huge numbers of bottles being thrown out while working in events management in Beirut's nightlife, one of the city's calling cards first quieted by the pandemic and economic crisis, and now battered by the blast.

Glass from the explosion poses different challenges from bottles, as much of it is dirty, so the initiative focuses on gathering glass from inside homes and other buildings, setting up a hotline where people can request pickup.

Abdel Karim said they aim to find other ways of recycling the glass that is not suitable to send to Tripoli, possibly by crushing it to be used in cement or other materials.

"This is the tip of the iceberg," he said, noting just a fraction of the glass so far had been collected and repurposed.

"It needs a lot of time, we know that."



Mexico Awaits New Response from Google on Dispute Over Gulf of Mexico Name Before Filing Lawsuit 

The Gulf of Mexico branded as Gulf of America is pictured through a magnifying glass on the Google Maps app on a computer in Bogota on February 11, 2025. (AFP)
The Gulf of Mexico branded as Gulf of America is pictured through a magnifying glass on the Google Maps app on a computer in Bogota on February 11, 2025. (AFP)
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Mexico Awaits New Response from Google on Dispute Over Gulf of Mexico Name Before Filing Lawsuit 

The Gulf of Mexico branded as Gulf of America is pictured through a magnifying glass on the Google Maps app on a computer in Bogota on February 11, 2025. (AFP)
The Gulf of Mexico branded as Gulf of America is pictured through a magnifying glass on the Google Maps app on a computer in Bogota on February 11, 2025. (AFP)

Mexico said Monday it is awaiting a new response from Google to its request that the tech company fully restore the name “Gulf of Mexico” to its Google Maps service before filing a lawsuit.

President Claudia Sheinbaum shared a letter addressed to her government from Cris Turner, Google’s vice president of government affairs and public policy. It says that Google will not change the policy it outlined after US President Donald Trump declared the body of water the Gulf of America.

“We will wait for Google’s response and if not, we will proceed to court,” Sheinbaum said Monday during a morning press briefing.

As it stands, the gulf appears in Google Maps as “Gulf of America” within the United States, as “Gulf of Mexico” within Mexico and “Gulf of Mexico” (Gulf of America) elsewhere. Turner in his letter said the company was using “Gulf of America” to follow “longstanding maps policies impartially and consistently across all regions” and that the company was willing to meet in person with the Mexican government.

“While international treaties and conventions are not intended to regulate how private mapping providers represent geographic features, it is our consistent policy to consult multiple authoritative sources to provide the most up to date and accurate representation of the world,” he wrote.

Mexico has argued that the mapping policy violates Mexican sovereignty because the US only has jurisdiction over around 46% of the Gulf. The rest is controlled by Mexico, which controls 49% and Cuba, which controls around 5%. The name “Gulf of Mexico” dates back to 1607 and is recognized by the United Nations.

In response to Google's letter, Mexican authorities said they would take legal action, writing that “under no circumstance will Mexico accept the renaming of a geographic zone within its own territory and under its jurisdiction.”

The renaming of the body of water by Trump has flared tensions between Mexico and the US at a pivotal time for the neighboring allies.

Sheinbaum has had to walk a fine line with Trump amid threats of tariffs and Mexico and other Latin American countries have braced themselves for promised mass deportations, the brunt of which has still not been felt.

Along with the legal threat to Google, the Mexican president also announced Monday that Mexico and the US would hold high-level meetings this week on trade and security in an effort to maintain a “long-term plan of collaboration” between the two countries.

It's the latest round of talks between the two countries in which Mexico hopes to hold off a larger geopolitical crisis.