French firm seeks new use for tonnes of grain blown up in Beirut blast

A French firm has begun sifting through the rubble from Beirut's destroyed grain silo on Tuesday (July 13) to collect the remnants of thousands of tonnes of wheat that is rotting and attracting rats almost a year after a chemical blast ripped through the port.

 

The impact of the Aug. 4 blast, which killed more than 200 people and devastated swathes of Lebanon's capital, can still be seen everywhere, with a half sunken ship, mangled cars and the remains of once-stored clothing strewn among the wreckage.

One of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history scattered an estimated 20,000 tonnes of wheat throughout the blast zone. Some remains inaccessible inside the jagged shell of what is left of the silo, just minutes from the city center.

The wheat is no longer fit for human or animal consumption and now Recygroup and its local partner Man Enterprise are working out how best it can be put to good use.

One idea is that it could be turned into fertilizer, or maybe used as building material as a landfill layer as the companies embark on one of the first large scale clean-up operations after the blast.

"Today all the rubble should be removed so that the port can function properly," Marwan Rizkalla, director of Mondis, a subsidiary of Man Enterprise, said.

"The wheat causes smells, insects and rats, we can't keep it like this, it has to be treated the right way," he said.

Christophe DeBoffe, vice president of Recygroup, said work to separate the grain from the other debris would take three to four months while the lab work is ongoing.

The contract for Recygroup, which specializes in dealing with waste to help create circular economies, is worth 1.3 million euros ($1.5 million).