Coastline garbage creates a stink in Lebanon

Piles of garbage washed up at a coastal area near Keserwan underscore the continuing need for a solution to the waste management crisis.

By Nohad Topalian in Beirut

2018-02-02

This photograph shows the bank of Nahr el-Kalb river after it was cleaned up by the Higher Relief Council. [Photo courtesy of Lebanon's National News Agency]

Widely circulated photographs of garbage washed up on the Mediterranean coast near Keserwan have sparked public outrage and renewed calls for a sustainable solution to Lebanon's ongoing waste management crisis.

Photographs of the trash-strewn coastline published by Lebanese media outlets on January 22nd have brought the crisis back into the public eye and led to political finger-pointing over the government's failure to find a solution.

Politicians even disagree over the source of the garbage.

According to Kataeb Party chief Samy Gemayel, the trash originated from the temporary landfills in Bourj Hammoud and Costa Brava, and was carried to the beach by the storm that hit Lebanon between January 19th to 21st.

Mountains of trash washed up on Lebanon's Mediterranean coast have renewed calls for a solution to the country's waste management crisis. [Photo courtesy of the National News Agency]

Lebanese MP Sami Gemayel visits an area of the Mediterranean coast near Keserwan where piles of garbage washed ashore. [Photo from Sami Gemayel's Facebook page]

Meanwhile, the Council for Development and Reconstruction denied that the waste originated from those two landfills, saying there are concrete barriers at those sites to block sea water from reaching the waste.

The council instead suggested the source of the garbage might be Nahr el-Kalb river and the random waste dumps along its course set up by Matn region municipalities after the closure of the Bourj Hammoud landfill in April 2017.

Minister of the Environment Tarek Khatib also pointed to the waste dumps along the Nahr el-Kalb river.

As Keserwan residents took to the streets and social media to protest, the High Council for Relief cleared the beach and other affected areas, at the directive of Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri.

Permanent measures needed

"We have long warned that permanent solutions must be found for the waste crisis," Gemayel told Al-Mashareq. "But to date, the government has only taken temporary measures that have resulted in what we saw on the shores of the Nahr el-Kalb."

The Kataeb Party had proposed legislation to resolve the crisis "that writes off the debts owed by municipalities located within the operational areas of the waste management companies Sukleen and Sukomi", he said.

This also calls for the establishment of a central team, as stipulated in the government’s plan of September 2015, to help municipalities establish sorting centres and undertake the task of collecting, hauling and sorting waste, he said.

Another proposal calls for expediting the adoption of the solid waste management draft law of 2012, he added.

Until a sustainable solution can be reached, there is an urgent need to haul the waste to landfills in Sarar in the Akkar region and al-Masnaa in the anti-Lebanon Mountains region, he said.

"While the government has a temporary solution that calls for dumping waste at the Bourj Hammoud and Costa Brava landfills, there ought to be a permanent and sustainable solution," said Lebanese MP Akram Chehayeb.

There must be "centralisation of true planning and control", the former Minister of the Environment told Al-Mashareq.

A permanent sustainable solution for waste treatment lies in the establishment of thermal decomposition plants to convert waste into electricity, he added.