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The closing of Beirut’s main landfill left the streets covered in trash. But the men couldn’t have cared less.

As the government struggled to find a sustainable solution for waste, the citizens paid the price, living in filth. Until 81-year-old woman, Zeinab Mokalle took control, that is. She has been practicing a viable recycling solution for nearly 30 years.

With almost zero assistance from the government, or men, Mokalle found a solution to the trash problem in her village, Arabsalim, and implemented it herself with the help of other women.

When Mokalle turned to her regional governor to help her solve the trash problem, he told her “Why do you care? We are not Paris.” Men.

Instead of being discouraged, Mokalle responded, “I knew that day that I had to take it upon myself.” So, with no assistance from the government, Mokalle set forward to fix the problem herself by creating her household recycling solution, Call of the Earth.

Lebanon woman launches recycling initiative in her village, Entity reports.

Entity reports on woman who starts recycling initiative in her village.

Mokalle called upon the women in the Arabsalim, not only because she wanted to empower them, but also because she genuinely believed they would do a better job.

In order to gain women volunteers and support for her project, Mokalle went door-to-door, spreading the message of Call of the Earth to the village women. One of the few male employees was hired to drive the trucks full of waste, and Mokalle ensured he was always accompanied so that he was never approaching the women alone.

In the Mid-1990’s in a Lebanese Muslim village, women taking over the traditionally male-dominated industry of dealing with the village’s waste was a controversial movement that was not widely supported.

But Mokalle was not deterred, as she turned the garden in her backyard into storage for the recyclable waste. It took the government three years to recognize the impact Call of the Earth had on Arabsalim, when they finally gave her 300 plastic bins and a piece of land so that she could move the storage from her backyard.

Ten years later, the Italian Embassy gave Call of the Earth a grant to build a warehouse to more efficiently process the recycling. And now students, schoolchildren and activists can visit the physical embodiment of Mokalle’s idea.

Now that the government is still only proposing detrimental options to deal with waste, such as dumping it near the airport, unloading it into the Mediterranean or even burning it; other villages, such as Kaffaremen and Jaarjoua, are looking to Mokalle’s organization as a model solution.

As they set up their own initiatives, Mokalle’s Call of the Earth is inspiring their efforts. “Planting the idea in people’s minds that caring for the earth is our responsibility in this part of the world. Whether we do it or not, our politicians won’t care,” Mokalle says. “It’s down to us.”

Despite the lack of help, Mokalle and her fellow women handled the Lebanese recycling crisis better than any man or politician had before them. Guess they shouldn’t have tried sending a man to do a woman’s job.

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