BEIRUT: The waste dump in Naameh presents a public health danger and must be shut immediately, Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt said Monday.
“It is time for the Lebanese state to make a clear decision to close the Naameh landfill,” Jumblatt wrote in his weekly column for Al-Anbaa newspaper. “It has become a horrible reality for public health and the environment, and a painful one for the residents of nearby villages.”
Originally opened in 1997 with a plan to stuff it with garbage for six years, the landfill still remains open after 17 years, and has exceeded its original capacity five-fold, frustrating the residents of the area with its odors and gas emissions.
“It is illogical to place the all the burden on one region,” Jumblatt said, suggesting that each region takes care of its own waste.
The Naameh dump receives up to 3,000 tons of garbage per day from Beirut and Mount Lebanon, according to studies.
Jumblatt suggested that personal interests were behind the government's delays in addressing the issue.
Is the failure of the government to reach a solution “related to some personal interests or deals?,” he asked. “Or is due to other unknown reasons?”
He also said he would reveal some scandalous details about secret deals between parties involved in the landfill should the government fail to act soon.
But Jumblatt acknowledged that it was unlikely the landfill would be closed within a scheduled deadline of January 17, 2015, and said he will only accept the extension of this deadline if an alternative plan is announced.
The PSP chief proposed the construction of environmentally sound waste treatment facilities, or to spread the garbage dumped in Naameh over other areas such as Karantina. The Sidon experience, in which the landfill was closed and a new project is being built on top of the buried waste, should be a good example for possible solutions in Naameh, he added.
Naameh residents earlier this year staged several protests, preventing garbage trucks from entering the landfill, and demanding its permanent closure.
Their protest prompted Sukleen, the waste management company, to stop collecting garbage in Beirut and Mount Lebanon for several days, causing huge piles of waste on the streets.
The January protest ended after the police intervened to reopen the landfill.
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