Who Is Trashing The Country?

They’ve succeeded in diverting the Lebanese’ attention from the myriad of issues they used to rise and protest for; they’ve narrowed it down to “trash” and all the possible ways to process, burn, collect it or any procedure that could wipe out the nauseating smell that’s painfully accentuated by the sweltering heat.

Trash hangs on our tails wherever we may go now that claning workers are gone. We're literally festering with corruption, much like everything else in the country.

Change and Reform bloc member, MP Ibrahim Kanaan, strictly advised against creating interim solutions for the waste management issue, stressing that they would prove ineffective and further sustain the supremacy of mobs.

“There are certain, and well-known, mobs that design a problem in order to get the government to take steps within their favor,” he noted.

He called for a central administrative solution for the waste issue that is not impaired by politics.

Deek al-Mehdi municipality Head Amin Chukair announced that negotiations with Tamish monastery are underway so as to utilize a remote and uninhabited land for garbage disposal.

“We’re working tirelessly in order to find a swift and temporary solution. What we are doing so far is restricted to spraying absorbent material to curb the spread of microbes and foul smell,” he explained.

Zoiuk Mosbeh municipality head Charbel Semaan Meraab criticized the government’s conduct, arguing that “we have suggested solutions to multiple environmental cases impeding the region but the government rejected our proposals. Trash is piling up and all we can do is collect it, we didn’t even burn it yet.”

Meraab said that he had asked the area’s residents to sort out their waste but only 30 thousands are likely to act upon his call.

Ballouneh municipality followed suit, chiding the government for seizing 80 percent of the municipality’s independent funds to cover Sukleen payments all the while charging additional fees for garbage collecting.

Municipalities conceived this bundle of temporary solutions to get rid of the eye sore on our door steps but drastic and conclusive solutions remain, as Kanaan put it, in the hands of the government.

An article originally written in Arabic by Nada G. al-Khoury.