Hbaline Residents to Block Roads Saturday as Minister Says Sukleen to Keep Collecting Waste in Beirut
Residents of the Jbeil district town of Hbaline on Thursday warned that they would block Saturday all roads leading to a controversial garbage landfill in their town, as Environment Minister Mohammed al-Mashnouq announced that the Sukleen firm will continue collecting waste in Beirut and its suburbs in the coming days.
In a statement issued after a broad meeting, the so-called Hbaline Landfill Follow-Up Committee stressed that residents will not allow trucks coming from “areas outside the Jbeil district” to dump waste at the landfill.
“The garbage that has been accumulating since tens of years represents a great challenge and it must be recycled,” the committee said, warning that the waste is “causing major pollution in the river's stream.”
It also decried “the foul smells and the poisons that are emanating from the landfill and reaching all towns in the region, as well as the blazes that erupt every now and then at the dump.”
Meanwhile, the environment minister issued a statement calling on “citizens, their political leaderships, municipal unions and the civil society to cooperate and support the implementation of the national plan for treating solid waste in Lebanon.”
His remarks come on the eve of the expiry of a deadline for the closure of the Naameh landfill south of Beirut, which is threatening to plunge the country into a major garbage management crisis.
“From the very first day, the cabinet of national interest was keen on devising a national plan for the treatment of solid waste and it sought to implement a decentralized system at the level of the governorates that involves six zones, in which firms selected through transparent tenders would assume the required missions,” Mashnouq clarified.
He explained that enough bidders have been found for five zones, “while no firms have submitted tenders for the capital Beirut and its suburbs, which necessitated organizing a third and final call for tenders for this region, which would be finalized within two weeks.”
Noting that “the overpopulation in the capital and its suburbs does not allow establishing waste treatment centers,” the minister underlined that “this burden should be shared equally by the rest of the governorates.”
He stressed that “sanitation cannot stop and it is necessary to continue the operations of waste collection, sweeping and treatment until the firms that win the tenders become ready to assume this mission.”
Accordingly, “Sukleen will continue its operations in the capital and Mount Lebanon, which involve sweeping, collection, transfer and treatment but not dumping, as it is the responsibility of the municipalities and their unions to find locations for waste treatment … pending the final allocation of the alternative landfills.”
On Wednesday, residents and the Democratic Gathering bloc led by MP Walid Jumblat stressed their rejection of any extension of a deadline to shut down the Naameh landfill, underlining that the Chouf, Iqlim al-Kharroub and Aley regions “will no longer be a garbage dumpster.”
“July 17 will be the final date for the closure of the landfill and any extension will not be accepted. The responsibility for the repercussions does not fall on the region and its residents, but rather on the policy of procrastination and indecisiveness that was endorsed throughout the past months,” Democratic Gathering said.
The crisis started looming after environmentalists warned this week that they would stop trucks from hauling waste at the landfill starting Friday, which coincides with Eid al-Fitr.
The landfill that lies in the town of Naameh south of Beirut is scheduled to be closed in accordance with a government decision.
The July 17 deadline for the closure of the landfill also coincides with the expiry of the contract with Sukleen, which is responsible for collecting and transporting the garbage in Beirut and Mount Lebanon.
In January, the cabinet decided to delay the closure of the landfill, drawing the ire of the residents of Naameh and environmentalists.
It approved the controversial decision after a long-heated debate regarding the country's plan to treat solid waste.
The plan devised by al-Mashnouq decentralizes the management of solid waste, divides Lebanon into six blocks and limits the licensing of garbage collection to one contractor in maximum two blocks.
Y.R.
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