Jessy Nassar

In the absence of a clear official policy on dealing with the influx of Syrian refugees into Lebanon, municipalities where refugees have settled are being forced to play a leading role in the management and provision of services. This situation has placed significant pressure on local infrastructure, with the increase of solid waste generation being one of the most visible effects of the crisis at the local level. The World Bank’s socio-economic impact assessment of the Syrian crisis showed that waste generation has doubled and even tripled in some areas of Lebanon, leading to water contamination and the spread of various types of diseases. 

The fact that waste generation has increased following the influx of refugees cannot be refuted. However, the absence of a cohesive and sustainable solid waste strategy is the primary cause of the current waste management crisis, which, as we have been witnessing for the last 10 days, has allowed trash to take over the streets of Lebanon. 

The absence of a national waste strategy and the consequences this has had on local authorities tasked with collecting and managing a significant portion of solid waste in Lebanon account for the severity of the current problem. Since the Civil War, and later between 1998 and 2006, the Environment Ministry dealt with waste in line with an emergency plan. 

In 1996, the state gave Sukleen, a private waste management company, permission to open a landfill in Naameh to receive waste from Beirut and Mount Lebanon. While the landfill was slated to offer a temporary solution until a national waste strategy was adopted, the situation developed differently in practice. As a result of the prolongation of the emergency plan, Naameh landfill received 3,000 tons of solid waste every day, three times the amount for which it was designated. 

The same scenario is repeating itself today, following the closure of the landfill on July 17, a deadline that was pushed back several times, sparking numerous protests by local residents against the overuse of the site. Now, the concern is that the government’s decision to find temporary alternative landfill sites while a permanent solution is hammered out could lead to the same consequences.

The various extensions of the emergency period, which prevented the adoption of an agreement on a long-term strategy, left the task of selecting new landfill sites to private stakeholders. New landfill locations were nonetheless still not identified and are currently the subject of heated debate. The most recent ministerial decree issued by Prime Minister Tammam Salam urged that garbage be collected immediately and transported to landfill sites designated by the Environment Ministry. The latter, however, refused to publically announce the location of dumping sites. Media reports indicate that the areas designated by the ministry include Sibline and Chekka.

This led local residents and municipal leaders south of Beirut to close down roads leading to the entrance of their towns in opposition to those locations potentially being used as dumping sites. Now that Sukleen is progressively resuming its operations in Beirut after they were halted for one week, many question where trash is being transported. 

Another alarming problem is that the government’s laxity has compelled citizens to turn against each other by throwing their waste in other localities. According to a recent news report, a company was caught transporting waste from Antelias, Mansourieh and Rabieh to the northern village of Kefraya, though its name was not revealed. Similar incidents are reported to be taking place elsewhere.

Therefore, the overuse of the Naameh landfill and other similar practices not only offer examples of the absence of a sustainable policy, but are also one reason why municipalities must contend with exorbitant costs to have waste collected from their jurisdictions and disposed of. In the past, this has led to the use of informal collectors who pick up trash, which is dumped on the outskirts of villages or in makeshift dumps. Today, this practice has become normalized on a national scale, and not just in the areas where a private company like Sukleen is not operating. 

The reason behind the failed efforts to formulate a national waste strategy is proving to be political, since local officials point to conflicting interests among power holders. The mayors of both Sibline and the head of the Zahrani municipal union have stated that the majority of money in their towns is spent on cleaning services. They blamed the situation on “the absence of proper planning and management,” a point quite evident today. The mayor of Sibline, among other local officials, described the agreement between Sukleen and the state as being “imposed.” While top authorities point to municipalities’ propensity to use illegal dumping sites, local leaders argue that they are engaged in efforts to manage solid waste in responsible ways, be it through forestation such as in Sibline, or through the use of Zrarieh, a plant that converts garbage into usable fuels. 

However, the prolongation of the garbage crisis by politicians, some of whom have a stake in private waste collection, represents an obstacle to supporting local efforts. Recent reports have even suggested the involvement of a brother of a former minister in transporting trash to a dump in a northern town, without the knowledge or the consent of the municipality in question. 

Environmental specialists have also stressed that the adoption of treatment measures to deal with waste is more cost-efficient and profitable since sorted garbage can be converted into fuel. Yet, state officials still prefer incineration despite it being much more time-consuming and damaging.

It should be recognized, then, that Syrian refugees are not the cause of Lebanon’s current waste management crisis. Instead, the influx has certainly added to the crisis, and the refugees’ presence has highlighted systemic problems rather than accounted for the overload of the system, which was already overloaded. Given the scale of the crisis, these problems are unlikely to be solved if private companies do not offer fair prices and, more importantly, if money is not transparently released by the central government allowing local authorities to manage their localities. This suggests that the relationship between local authorities and the central government should be rearranged to empower the former. 

In the meantime, the government must follow up on its duties to share the burden of supporting both refugees and the local communities hosting them. The need for central government intervention is pressing, especially when needs generated by the crisis are growing. Taking advice from municipal leaders could be a good start since they are the people who most often deal directly with both the refugee crisis and solid waste management.