Garbage piled up in the streets of Metn during a minor waste crisis in 2022. (Credit: Marc Fayad/L'Orient-Le Jour)
The brief closure of the Jdeideh landfill (serving North Mount Lebanon and part of Beirut) on Tuesday, followed by its temporary reopening until the Cabinet meeting on Thursday, has revived the specter of waste management crises in Lebanon. It’s a cursed cycle the country seems trapped in. In light of past failures and another looming on the horizon, here are some reasons that help explain this status quo. The drama Jdeideh landfill set to close, sparking fears of new trash crisis 1. Lack of foresightThe Lebanese state finds itself caught in a spiral of deadlines it cannot meet and temporary solutions that become permanent. Since the closure of the Civil War dump in Burj Hammoud (Beirut) in 1997 and the opening of the Naameh sanitary landfill (Aley) a few months later, this pattern began to emerge. Naameh was supposed to last five...
The brief closure of the Jdeideh landfill (serving North Mount Lebanon and part of Beirut) on Tuesday, followed by its temporary reopening until the Cabinet meeting on Thursday, has revived the specter of waste management crises in Lebanon. It’s a cursed cycle the country seems trapped in. In light of past failures and another looming on the horizon, here are some reasons that help explain this status quo. The drama Jdeideh landfill set to close, sparking fears of new trash crisis 1. Lack of foresightThe Lebanese state finds itself caught in a spiral of deadlines it cannot meet and temporary solutions that become permanent. Since the closure of the Civil War dump in Burj Hammoud (Beirut) in 1997 and the opening of the Naameh sanitary landfill (Aley) a few months later, this pattern began to emerge. Naameh was supposed to last...
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