Gemayel, Bou Saab Inspect Bourj Hammoud Landfill, Urge Amendment of Waste Plan
Kataeb Party chief MP Sami Gemayel and Education Minister Elias Bou Saab of the Free Patriotic Movement on Thursday inspected the controversial garbage landfill in Bourj Hammoud and called on the government to amend its emergency waste management plan.
“What I saw today was expected and it confirms that Kataeb's protests are rightful, seeing as the government's so-called plan is being implemented chaotically and without any accountability or inspection,” Bou Saab told reporters at the site.
“I met with Sheikh Sami before coming here and we're discussing possible solutions that require amending the government's plan so that we can start the decentralization process. There is no confidence in the current implementation method and the only solution is administrative decentralization,” the minister added.
“There are ideas that might lead to a result if the government meets us halfway. We would then go through a brief transitional period that would lead us to the sought result and this would resolve a small crisis that is being blown out of proportion by the politicians who have their own motives,” Bou Saab went on to say.
Gemayel for his part stressed that it is necessary to “put an end to the disaster through amending the plan,” warning that “the region is suffering a major health and environmental catastrophe.”
He also urged officials to “liberate the Metn area from the nightmare instead of launching theories and putting us under pressure.”
“Let them revise the plan, find health- and environmental-friendly solutions, and implement decentralization,” Gemayel added.
Protesters from the Kataeb Party and several environmentalist and civil society groups have been staging a sit-in outside the Bourj Hammoud site for several weeks and on August 11 students from the Kataeb Party managed to force the suspension of works aimed at setting up a new seaside landfill.
The protesters and activists have accused authorities of seeking to “land-fill the sea” with unsorted and unrecycled garbage in a manner that poses environmental and health risks and violates the Convention for Protection of the Mediterranean Sea against Pollution.
The Bourj Hammoud Municipality has also prevented garbage trucks from accessing a temporary storage site in the area, accusing the government of failing to respect the agreement that preceded the emergency plan.
The closure of the temporary storage site has prompted the Sukleen waste management firm to suspend garbage collection in several areas in Mount Lebanon and Beirut, which has resulted in a new pileup of trash on the streets.
The country's unprecedented waste management crisis erupted in July last year when the country's central landfill in Naameh was closed amid the government's failure to find alternatives.
The crisis saw streets, forests and riverbeds overflowing with trash for several months and triggered unprecedented street protests against the entire political class that sometimes turned violent.
Experts have long urged the government to devise a comprehensive waste management solution that would include more recycling and composting to reduce the amount of trash going into landfills.
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