Trash situation still stinks as Lebanon leans on 'temporary' landfills

Although two years have passed since Lebanon's waste management crisis reached a head in 2015, the problem is ongoing. On Oct. 26, the Cabinet asked the Council for Development and Reconstruction to prepare a study on the possibility of expanding the Costa Brava and Bourj Hammoud temporary landfills. The Cabinet also raised the option of incinerators again in the same session. Activists, however, condemned such a short-term plan and expressed concern about the risks of using incinerators as a long-term solution.

The council is now required to conduct a study on the expansion of the Costa Brava and Bourj Hammoud landfills south and northeast of Beirut, respectively. These landfills were opened as part of a four-year plan to resolve the waste management crisis in Lebanon in April 2016, eight months after the closure of the Naameh landfill, where garbage from Beirut and Mount Lebanon was dumped for 20 years.

Landfills do not offer a long-term solution, as they already cannot handle Lebanon’s waste, estimated at around 4,000 tons a day. These two landfills were not subjected to an environmental impact assessment and were supposed to remain in operation for three and a half years. Nevertheless, they are already reaching their maximum capacity, two years earlier than anticipated. The large flocks of seagulls attracted to the waste of the Costa Brava landfill pose a danger to the neighboring airport. Garbage intended for Bourj Hammoud has been dumped in the sea since summer 2017.

The civil society group Beirut Madinati stated Oct. 27 that the Cabinet’s move lacked vision and a comprehensive strategy. “For us, it is another way to escape the problem, and to avoid dealing with it as it should,” Beirut Madinati member Zeina Abla told Al-Monitor. “The government wants to expand the landfills to avoid the recurrence of the 2015 crisis right before parliamentary elections” expected in May 2018, she said.