Lebanon continues to drown in own trash
Ineptitude of political class sticks out in ‘stinking’ crisis
The trash blankets the beach in Beirut, rubbish is pushed into the sea by the tonnes, and the smoke from the heaps of burning garbage washes across Lebanon’s countryside.
Little has fazed the Lebanese since the civil war ended here in 1990. Intermittent electricity and water. Dismal telecommunications at extortionate prices. An exasperating government perpetually in gridlock. All are accepted as routine.
Yet, it’s Lebanon’s waste crisis, a three-year tale of tragicomic ineptitude, that has enraged the nation and brought people to the streets in anger. It has also raked up questions about the sense of shared destiny among Lebanon’s 18 sects, and what it means to be a Lebanese citizen under a government many no longer trust.
The trash crisis’ roots can be traced back decades, but it first made headlines in 2015 after residents in the village of Naameh blocked the road to a nearby landfill to stop the trash from being hauled in.
The site had been opened in 1997 and was meant to last for just seven years. Eighteen years and 15 million tonnes of trash later - 13 million more than it ■ was supposed to hold - the landfill was closed.
But the government hadn’t prepared an alternative site. Sukleen, the contractor that picked up waste in the capital and its environs, simply stopped doing so. Hills of trash, sprinkled with white pesticide powder to control the rats, cropped up like outof-season Christmas displays on Beirut’s sweltering streets.
It spurred what became known as the “You Stink” movement, in which a civil society group rallied tens of thousands of Lebanese to excoriate the government and call for its ouster. The protests turned violent, with police firing tear gas as protesters lobbed cracked tiles from buildings in Beirut’s glitzy downtown.
Since then, the issue has largely been hidden from view, but that’s only because most municipalities either dump the country’s estimated 2.5 million tonnes of annual waste in open fields and burn it, or bulldoze it into the sea, the latter claimed to be a land reclamation strategy.
Yet like the villain in a slasher movie who just won’t die, the trash just keeps coming back.
Last week, residents in the south Beirut neighbourhood of Sillom woke up to a river of garbage slithering its way between their houses - the routine aftermath of rainfall.
But instead of action, the waste crisis has brought on the customary spate of recriminations, with officials using it to score political points against their adversaries. Some blamed Syrian refugees; others claimed it was all a conspiracy.
“The government’s response has been disastrous since 2015. We’ve been dumping our waste into the sea. It’s inconceivable,” said Gilbert Doumit, a Beirutbased civil society politician.
Although the Naameh landfill has been closed for more than three years, there still is no replacement for the area. Each potential site has brought protests from would-be neighbours.
Last month, officials sparked another round of protests with their latest proposal: the installation of incinerators that would not only burn the trash but, they claimed, generate electricity as well. But experts are sceptical, pointing out that the incinerators would simply belch toxins into the air, including carcinogens and immune-disruptors.
Meanwhile some neighbourhoods have started “taking more responsibility,” bypassing the government and organising their own recycling efforts.
“It crystallised the old question of what it means to be Lebanese,” said said environmental engineer Ziad Abi Chaker, who is organising community recycling projects instead of waiting for the state to take action.
“You are Lebanese when you solve your own problems without relying on your government.”