BEIRUT, Lebanon (Reuters) – Lorries began clearing the rubbish that had piled up in Beirut’s streets, under a plan approved last month to solve the seven-month garbage crisis in Lebanon.
And though residents are relieved to be able to enjoy clean streets in the capital again, environmentalists warn against what they say is only a temporary solution.
The garbage crisis, which began last July when the Naameh landfill site south of Beirut was closed with no plan in place for an alternative, triggered widespread protests against the dysfunctional state and raised concerns about public health.
Under the plan agreed on March 12, two landfills will be established near Beirut – the Costa Brava site in Choueifat and another site in Bourj Hammoud.
The Naameh landfill is also being reopened for two months to receive garbage.
Anthony Korban, a spokesman for Beirut’s waste management company Sukleen, said that 40% of the garbage piled up in the streets had already been removed and trucks had started to enter the Naameh site.
“We have already removed more than 150,000 tons. The estimated accumulation of garbage piled up on the streets through the eight month crisis is about 400,000 tons. We have removed in a record time more than 40% of the garbage,” Korban said.
Preparations were still underway to open the two new landfill sites, The Council for Reconstruction and Development said in a statement carried by Lebanon’s National News Agency.
“We are gradually starting to prepare what is called ‘parking’ on the sites of Costa Brava and Bourj Hammoud, as requested by the council for development and reconstruction, to meanwhile have a temporary site to collect and lay garbage while establishing processing and landfill centres on these sites,” added Korban.
The government had previously been working on a plan to export the garbage. But this was scrapped because the firm chosen failed to obtain documents showing that Russia, the intended destination, had agreed to accept it.
Environmental journalist and editor of greenarea.me, Bassam al-Kontar, said that the plans did not solve the rubbish problem long-term, as recycling plants were not being built.
“If garbage were just removed from bins and no more piled up on the streets, this does not mean the crisis is over, but it is much more likely that this same crisis will show up again at the earliest opportunity, as long as the government does not take any basic and strategic decisions to build a waste management sector based on the establishment of recycling factories rather than disposing garbage in landfills. This is the core requirement for the government and it is requested as soon as possible,” al-Kontar said.
According to al-Kontar, residents of Beirut and Mount Lebanon produce 3,200 tons of rubbish per day and the waste management plan only processes 15% of the garbage by sorting and brewing it, with the remaining 85% sent to landfills.
“The space the government took by sea reclamation in Bourj Hammoud and Choueifat is a narrow space even if it has spread to 100,000 metres in the sea, because – with a 85% dumping percentage – the 100,000 metres in the sea cannot last for more than a year or two. So the race against time starts again, garbage is being removed from the streets but without factories to retrieve the waste, garbage is expected to come back again on the streets in the near future,” he said.
The Lebanese cabinet has struggled to take even basic decisions due to political conflict among the rival parties represented in it.
Political deadlock has also left the country without a president for nearly two years
