Nine garbage treatment facilities receive EU funding Sorting and composting in the North and South Around ~35 million ($38.5 million) will be financed by the European Union to build and equip nine sorting and composting facilities in the North and South in 2016. The Office of the Minister of State for Administrative Reform (OMSAR) is in charge of launching the tenders for building and equipping the facilities in Baalbek, Akkar Srar, Tripoli, Dannieh, Bint Jbeil, Nabatieh, and Tyr. OMSAR and the concerned municipalities are also responsible for launching tenders for operating the facilities. Mohamad Baraki, Project Manager of the Solid Waste Management Program at OMSAR, said that the State will be funding in the first year the cost of sorting and composting the trash in these municipalities. The cost of sorting, composting, and transporting trash to the landfill usually should not exceed $25 per ton. Bar Elias, Kab Elias, and El-Marj municipalities launched construction works for building a sorting, composting, and landfill facility in Bar Elias. The Economic and Social Fund for Development (ESFD) is in charge of supervising the project and launching the tender. Hicon Company was awarded the construction works and the Bou Chalhoub Company for equipping it. It will be finalized in late 2016. The facility spans an area of 63,000 square meters. Investment in the project is $4.5 million. Saad Maita, Bar Elias Mayor, said that after finalizing the factory OMSAR will launch a tender to appoint a company to operate it. The production capacity of the facility will be sorting and composting 150 tons of trash per day. Maita said that the percentage of land-filling the waste should not exceed 30 percent.