Shehayyeb Meets Exportation Companies for Finishing Touches

Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb said that a meeting will take place on Wednesday with representatives from the companies tasked to export Lebanon's trash in order to finalize the last touches and pinpoint remarks made by several ministers, As Safir daily reported.

“Several ministers made some remarks about the contract that was signed with the British and Dutch companies. A meeting with the companies' representatives will take place today despite the holiday on the occasion of Prophet Mohammed's birthday in order to pinpoint the remarks,” he told the daily.

Shehayyeb added by saying that “the companies have the approval of specific countries to receive Lebanon's trash, but their identity was not disclosed pending a cabinet decision and an official approval of the exportation.”

He stated that the exportation will kick off in mid January and will include the newly generated trash excluding the piles that were burnt and buried.

“The process will take place based on specific priorities. There are thousands of tons of piled and decomposed trash that will remain in Lebanon to be processed later on,” he added.

Shehayyeb said that meetings with the British company tasked to run the processing in Karantina and al-Amrusieh succeeded in reducing the cost of processing from $56 to $26 per ton.

He concluded by saying that the exportation plan will not halt because there is no other practical solution, adding: “It is the best that we could achieve taking into consideration the failure of the waste management plan.”

On Monday, the cabinet approved a plan to send garbage abroad as a “temporary” solution to the waste disposal crisis, despite the objections of the ministers of the Free Patriotic Movement and the Kataeb Party.

According to Shehayyeb, exportation will cost $212 per ton.

Lebanon has been suffering from a waste management crisis since July when the Naameh landfill that receives the trash of Beirut and Mount Lebanon closed.

The government's failure to find alternatives led to the piling up of garbage on the streets and in random locations, which raised health and environmental concerns and sparked unprecedented street protests against the entire political class.

D.A.

M.T.