Trash Collection Resumes in Beirut as Ministerial Panel Reaches 'Solution'

Trash collection resumed in Beirut on Monday evening after the waste management ministerial committee managed to agree on a preliminary solution to the garbage crisis.

The solution involves the “immediate resumption” of waste collection in Beirut, a “balanced distribution” of Beirut and Mount Lebanon's garbage to new locations and financial “incentives” to municipalities, Environment Minister Mohammed al-Mashnouq announced after an emergency meeting at the Grand Serail.

Authorities would also continue to evaluate the tenders submitted by contractors and the Council for Reconstruction and Development will establish an “operations room” to follow up on the plan's implementation, Mashnouq added.

He said thermal decomposition centers will be set up for waste management.

LBCI television meanwhile said the agreement involves finding locations for three new landfills.

Earlier, Industry Minister Hussein al-Hajj Hassan announced that a “non-temporary solution” was reached for the crisis.

“We reached a solution and it's not temporary,” Hajj Hassan told reporters prior to the Grand Serail talks.

“It will be discussed today and agreed on and will be followed up through recommendations,” he added.

Education Minister Elias Bou Saab had noted that a “vision” for a possible solution was discussed during the committee's morning meeting.

The panel's agreement comes on the eve of a cabinet session that will be held Tuesday morning at the Grand Serail.

The crisis that erupted on July 17 has seen streets overflowing with waste and the air filled with the smell of rotting and burning garbage. The problem erupted after the central Naameh landfill was closed in accordance with a government decision taken earlier this year.

The landfill opened in 1997. It was meant to receive trash from the capital and Mount Lebanon for only a few years until a comprehensive solution was devised.

But the government kept extending the deadlines for its closure.

The current crisis has prompted citizens to stage angry road-blocking protests in several regions and civil society activists have called for a sit-in outside the Grand Serail that will coincide with Tuesday's cabinet session.

Y.R.