Some Municipalities Heed Mashnouq's Demand but Garbage Crisis Grows

A few municipalities in Mount Lebanon began on Friday collecting garbage as a temporary solution to a growing environmental crisis in the hot summer season that erupted after the closure of the Naameh landfill south of Beirut last week.

The number of municipalities, which met the demands of Environment Minister Mohammed al-Mashnouq, were however limited.

The collected waste was being placed in some uninhabited areas pending a government decision on where to dump the garbage of each governornate.

But Beirut Municipal chief Bilal Hamad told Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) that the capital does not have uninhabited areas that would be able to temporarily pile Beirut's waste.

He also criticized officials outside Beirut for refusing to dump the waste in their areas.

Hamad was likely referring to the northern district of Akkar, which has been seen as an area that can receive the garbage. But the proposal has been rejected outright by residents and several Akkar lawmakers.

There has also been talks to send the waste of Beirut and Mount Lebanon to the southern city of Sidon. But its officials have warned against such an action.

MP Mohammed Qabbani told An Nahar daily published on Friday that Prime Minister Tammam Salam and al-Mustaqbal Movement chief ex-PM Saad Hariri have backed the establishment of a Lebanese University campus in Akkar to lure the area's officials to accept waste being dumped there.

Al-Mashnouq told An Nahar that he would work within 15 days to announce the names of firms that have won tenders to find locations of new landfills.

The companies would start operations in six months, he said.

Following a cabinet session on Thursday, al-Mashnouq estimated the amount of trash currently on the streets to be at 22,000 tons.

The government failed to reach a decision on the crisis, postponing discussion until next week.

The Naameh landfill opened in 1997. It was meant to receive trash from Beirut and the heavily-populated Mount Lebanon area for only a few years until a comprehensive solution was devised.

But that plan never came to fruition. As nearly 20 years ticked by, the valley that was originally expected to receive only two million tons of waste swelled into a trash mountain of over 15 million tons.

The landfill was closed on July 17.

But since its closure, the failure to find an alternative caused the garbage to spill out of dumpsters and into the paths of passing cars in Beirut and Mount Lebanon.

The growing heaps have been dusted with white poison powder to keep away rats and insects, but the measure does little to combat the odor.

Marwan Rizkallah, a Lebanese solid waste management expert, said the Naameh crisis is symptomatic of a larger trash problem.

"The amount of waste being disposed of should be reduced," he said.

"If plans were adopted before or if other treatment methods were adopted before, we could have dumped much less waste into that landfill."

He said a new landfill site will be needed, but Lebanon also has to adopt recycling and better home sorting of trash so the organic matter that constitutes more than 50 percent of its garbage can be composted.

"We cannot just create another Naameh," he said.

"We have to find another location, that is true, but as well we need to adopt different treatment technologies, we need to reduce the amount of waste generated, we need to recycle more," he added.

G.K.

D.A.