
Waste is piling up on a road in Akkar (northern Lebanon) on June 2, 2025. (Credit: Our correspondent in the region Michel Hallak)
In Beirut, in Mount Lebanon and in Akkar, the waste crisis continues. To Wajiha Yassine, director of the company Al Amana Al Douwaliya, in charge of Akkar's main landfill, Srar, in northern Lebanon, "no one can solve the waste crisis without the State."
As waste continues to pile up on roads, in valleys, rivers and even agricultural and forest areas, Yassine denounced the State's inability to fund municipalities and the absence of a national management plan. "We are not the State. We cannot take on everything, and it has a cost," she added, at a time when municipalities, on the front line, no longer have the means to ensure collection.
Since 2019, no improvement has been observed in Akkar, reports our correspondent in the region, Michel Hallak. The sight of illegal dumps, bad odors and pollution has become a daily occurrence. In this marginalized region, Al Amana manages, in coordination with the majority of municipalities, nearly 300 tons of waste per day.
Sorting center out of service
The Srar landfill is equipped with a sorting center financed by the European Union (EU), conceptualized in 2004 and completed in 2019, but still out of service. "The works started in 2012 and were completed in 2019," recalled Yassine, explaining that they had planted trees to develop the place, "an initiative praised by the EU."
The director points to the multidimensional crises in the country since 2019 and the municipalities' lack of resources to explain that the sorting plant is still out of service. She also accused the "corruption" and "small arrangements" in the region. According to her, facing her refusal to grant shares on the Srar site landfill to a family in the region, an illegal dump was opened just opposite by the governor, officially to "encourage competition and reduce prices," while she sees there a desire to harm and a direct sabotage of the initial project.
This situation is part of a broader context: Ten years after the great waste crisis of 2015-2016, and despite the worsening situation since 2019, Lebanon still struggles to adopt a national strategy based on sorting, recycling or source reduction. A plan had been developed under the previous government, but it is currently under review by the Environment Ministry. This issue also takes on new urgency after the election of new municipal councilors, following the elections on May 11 in northern Lebanon.
This article was translated from L'Orient-Le Jour.