The pictures of floating garbage after rain fell on Beirut Oct. 25 are indicative of the situation plaguing this small country. The shameful images, which went viral, point to Lebanon literally being a failed state. The Lebanese government — or what's left of it in light of the presidential vacuum ongoing since May 2014 and the parliamentary paralysis making it impossible to elect the president or enact new laws — is also unable to perform the most basic of municipal tasks: clearing roads of garbage.

Is this the paralysis that on Oct. 16 prompted Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk to threaten to have his team resign from the government? Machnouk probably prefers not to bear false witness or be turned into a scapegoat following numerous protests against the prime minister, environment minister and himself, all affiliated with the Future Movement. Garbage has been piling up on the streets since August.

Under popular pressure, on Sept. 11 the government had unanimously adopted a comprehensive waste treatment plan, according to which municipalities would be responsible for managing local waste. The government has failed to implement the plan, however, because of the sharp political divides among its components, which show no desire to make concessions in their refusal to establish landfills in their regions and share responsibility for collective waste. This is all the while knowing that the landfills are essential to the plan agreed to.

The point of contention is the location and distribution of the landfills among the provinces, a problem that at this point has taken on a sectarian character, like the overall power structure in the country. Although Lebanon's various regions are home to a mix of sects, they are still characterized by sectarian division. The solution on the table suggests distributing waste on a regional basis, but this by nature also means on a sectarian basis. Thus, talk of Shiite, Sunni and Christian landfills has emerged.