Lebanon, Volvo machines operate in force

A fleet of Volvo machines has been tasked to clean the 47 m high waste mountain in a landfill of Bourj Hammoud in Lebanon.

The city of Bourj Hammoud is located in the north east of Beirut and houses 150,000 inhabitants on 2.5 km², it is known particularly for its mountain of 47m high of waste since 27 years.

To rehabilitate the city, the government had launched a call for tender for the disposal of garbage and the construction of a new landfill site. The project worth $100 million will accommodate nearly 1.6 million tons of waste. The company Khoury Contracting Company (KCC) has been chosen to undertake this task by the Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR).

The major problem in this project is the lack of access roads, KCC had opted for articulated haulers ideal for transporting loads in muddy environments, and moreover, more than 200 employees are working on the site alongside of 39 Volvo CE machines supplied by the local Amtrac dealer.

The fleet of the machines includes EC460B, EC380D, EC350D, EC360B and EC290B excavators, A35C, A35D, A40 and A40D dumpers, L180E, L220E loaders and an SD110 compactor. All machines are currently loading and moving 3.5 million cubic meters of waste. Volvo excavators extracted, sorted and transported by the dumpers to a storage area of 340,000 m².

The completion of the landfill is expected by 2020.