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Trash situation still stinks as Lebanon leans on 'temporary' landfills

The Lebanese Cabinet has requested a study on the possibility of expanding the Costa Brava and Bourj Hammoud landfills, which were intended to be temporary but filled before their time.
A car is blocked by garbage piled up along a street in Dekwaneh area, Mount Lebanon August 29, 2016. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir  - S1AETYGHNHAA

Although two years have passed since Lebanon's waste management crisis reached a head in 2015, the problem is ongoing. On Oct. 26, the Cabinet asked the Council for Development and Reconstruction to prepare a study on the possibility of expanding the Costa Brava and Bourj Hammoud temporary landfills. The Cabinet also raised the option of incinerators again in the same session. Activists, however, condemned such a short-term plan and expressed concern about the risks of using incinerators as a long-term solution.

The council is now required to conduct a study on the expansion of the Costa Brava and Bourj Hammoud landfills south and northeast of Beirut, respectively. These landfills were opened as part of a four-year plan to resolve the waste management crisis in Lebanon in April 2016, eight months after the closure of the Naameh landfill, where garbage from Beirut and Mount Lebanon was dumped for 20 years.

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