Environment Committee: Implementation of Minister Shehayyeb’s plan to start as of today

MP Marwan Hamadeh said on Monday that the implementation of the waste management plan will start as of today.

Hamadeh’s comments were made following the Environment Committee meeting whereby he noted that the plan suggested by Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb has the support of the political powers and the civil society.

 

For his part, Minister Shehayyeb said that “without the street mobility this plan would not have seen the light.”

 
He also noted that the waste management file cannot wait anymore because the consequences “are not predictable.”

Last Wednesday, the cabinet approved a waste management plan suggested by Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb during a cabinet session unattended by Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil and State Minister for Parliament Affairs Mohammed Fneish.

The plan states the reopening of the Naameh landfill for seven days in order to dump the garbage accumulated in random sites in Beirut and Mount Lebanon after the original closure of the Naameh landfill on July 17.

Shehayyeb said that the plan reinstates the municipalities' waste management role and suggests the establishment of two sanitary landfills in the Akkar town of Srar and the Bekaa town of al-Masnaa, “using the waste management plant in Sidon” and reactivating the Bourj Hammoud landfill near Beirut.

The concerned ministries will also coordinate with the Council for Reconstruction and Development to renovate the Ras al-Ain landfill in the southern area of Tyre.

The waste management crisis emerged after the July 17 closure of the main landfill serving Beirut and its neighboring towns.

Following the Naameh landfill’s closure, the Lebanese government failed to find new sites for new landfills. Trash began to accumulate on the streets until municipalities started dumping in empty lots, river beds and forests.

The crisis sparked angry protests that grew into a mobilization against government ineffectiveness and corruption.

Activists said their pressure forced the government to annul the results of waste management bids that would have allocated the trash file to six companies suspected of having ties to powerful politicians.

As the crisis grew, Environment Minister Mohammed Mashnouq withdrew from a ministerial committee tasked with solving the problem as Prime Minister Tammam Salam tasked Shehayyeb with presiding over another committee.