Jdeideh landfill closed again, Mount Lebanon's trash piles up in the streets

Trash from Metn and Kesrouan (Mount Lebanon) has once again started piling up in the streets, for the umpteenth time in recent months because of the sudden closure of the Jdeideh landfill (Metn coast), the region's main rubbish site, on the morning of Wednesday, Feb. 18.

According to a source close to the case who wished to remain anonymous, this new closure is due to "the Council of Ministers' delay in securing funds to expand the landfill and build a new cell on a nearby plot of land," while the site is saturated.

The closure, decided by the Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR), the body managing the state's landfills, was communicated to the Council of Ministers, the source confirmed to L'Orient-Le Jour, citing the delay in launching the site expansion project.

The Jdeideh landfill has been saturated for several months already, leading the SGK company to pile the waste up higher and higher. Its expansion was approved by the Council of Ministers on Oct. 9, 2025, through the construction of a new cell on an adjacent plot. But the project's funding was still unresolved: the CDR suggested drafting a law to open a line of credit for building the new cell and an energy production station (recovering methane gas). As this project dragged on, the CDR ultimately proposed to the Ministry of Finance that funding be temporarily drawn from the Autonomous Municipal Fund, specifically deducted from the share allocated to municipalities served by this landfill, to the tune of $5.12 million, with the condition it would be reimbursed once the initial budget is released.

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However, the Cabinet has not yet placed the issue on the agenda for its meetings. According to the aforementioned source, "the absence of an official decision has prevented the contract from being signed with the contractor in charge of the expansion (and of managing the current site), which means the work cannot be started as the contractor deemed it too risky."

This decision is causing a new waste crisis in Metn and Kesrouan. "The landfill will remain closed until the Council of Ministers makes a decision, or at least promises a forthcoming decision, otherwise the CDR and the contractor will remain completely in the dark," the source said.

1,100 tons daily in the streets

Meanwhile, garbage is overflowing in the streets, once again. Walid Bou Saad, CEO of Ramco, the waste collection company for the area, told L’Orient-Le Jour he had been "notified the previous evening of the decision to close the landfill."

He said, "I have published a statement explaining to the public that the decision to stop collecting waste is not from Ramco but due to the closure of the landfill, the only site where our dump trucks can unload." According to him, "the affected regions are Metn and Kesrouan, not Beirut, whose trash is sent to the Costa Brava landfill (Choueifat, south of Beirut)." This amounts to 1,100 tons daily, uncollected for these two districts. Walid Bou Saad added that "the situation could become unmanageable in two or three days if garbage collection does not resume in those two districts."

Since the 2015-2016 waste crisis, which at the time was caused by the closure of the sole Beirut and Mount Lebanon landfill in Naameh, temporary solutions have been adopted with no real long-term strategy.

The two coastal landfills created since 2016 to manage the crisis – in Jdeideh and Costa Brava – have reached capacity more than once, and were only enlarged at the last minute after short periods of open crisis in the streets. The two expansions of these sites, the one currently underway at Costa Brava and the one planned at Jdeideh, are the last options possible for these reclaimed lands given their limited size — as there are currently no alternatives.

The Jdeideh landfill, located in an overcrowded area, is now nearly 40 meters high. The issue continues to be governed by poor planning and improvisation.