Residents of Jbeil and Hbaline Block Roads to Landfill

Residents of the Jbeil district town of Hbaline blocked on Saturday all the roads leading to the controversial garbage landfill in their town, the state-run National News Agency reported.

Their move comes after the announcement of Environment Minister Mohammed al-Mashnouq that the Sukleen firm will continue collecting waste in Beirut and its suburbs in the coming days.

Amchit municipality chief Toni Issa said that he requested the municipality's police to stop any dump truck from outside the district to enter Hbaline landfill “the police will be on the lookout.”

Earlier during the week, the so-called Hbaline Landfill Follow-Up Committee stressed that residents will not allow trucks coming from “areas outside the Jbeil district” to dump waste at the landfill.

“The garbage that has been accumulating since tens of years represents a great challenge and it must be recycled,” the committee said, warning that the waste is “causing major pollution in the river's stream.”

The expiry of a deadline for the closure of the Naameh landfill south of Beirut, threatens to plunge the country into a major garbage management crisis.

The crisis started looming after environmentalists warned this week that they would stop trucks from hauling waste at the landfill starting Friday, which coincided with Eid al-Fitr.

The July 17 deadline for the closure of the landfill coincided with the expiry of the contract with Sukleen, which is responsible for collecting and transporting the garbage in Beirut and Mount Lebanon.

In January, the cabinet decided to delay the closure of the landfill, drawing the ire of the residents of Naameh and environmentalists.

It approved the controversial decision after a long-heated debate regarding the country's plan to treat solid waste.