Beirut Municipality Asks Cabinet to Allow It to Send Garbage Abroad
Beirut Municipality on Thursday called on the council of ministers to allow it to “hire specialized firms to send garbage abroad as a solution to the problem of disposing of the waste of the city of Beirut.”
The municipality reached its decision during an extraordinary meeting dedicated to the garbage crisis.
The conferees agreed that the capital is going through “a disastrous environmental situation,” noting that they aim to “prevent the recurrence of the painful experience that Beirut's residents have suffered.”
During the meeting, the municipality members were briefed by environmental experts on “the consequences that might befall the capital as a result of another accumulation of trash in its streets.”
In their statement, the conferees also noted that “the temporary solution that the Beirut Municipality started implementing yesterday will not last for long.”
On Wednesday, garbage trucks belonging to the capital's waste collector, Sukleen, started removing garbage from Beirut's streets and dumping them in the Karantina area on the capital's eastern peripheries, as part of an “emergency plan.”
Earlier on Thursday, the government failed to agree on measures to manage the country's waste crisis, which Prime Minister Tammam Salam blamed on the political conflict.
A ministerial committee chaired by Salam found earlier this week a temporary solution to begin taking trash to several landfills in undisclosed locations. But its decision was met with severe criticism and protests by residents and local officials who refused the waste of Beirut and Mount Lebanon to be dumped in their areas.
The unprecedented garbage crisis erupted after the closure of the Naameh landfill on July 17.
The crisis has seen streets overflowing with waste and the air filled with the smell of rotting garbage for around two weeks.
Experts have urged the government to devise a comprehensive waste management solution that would include more recycling and composting to reduce the amount of trash going into landfills.
But so far there has been no evidence of such a plan, and there is already opposition to the temporary solutions.
Y.R.
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