Majdal Anjar Residents Block Masnaa Road in Protest at Landfill Plans
Residents of the Bekaa town of Majdal Anjar on Friday blocked the key al-Masnaa road that links the province to Syria in protest at government plans to set up a garbage landfill in the area's outskirts on the Eastern Mountain Range.
Municipal chief Sami al-Ajami, al-Mustaqbal bloc MP Assem Araji and a number of dignitaries and spiritual leaders took part in the protest.
Araji stressed his rejection of establishing a landfill in the area, which he described as “the town's real face, especially in front of the Arab tourists.”
Meanwhile, Ajami and the town's imam Sheikh Mohammed Abdul Rahman expressed categorical rejection of setting up a landfill and bringing garbage from other regions, “no matter what the cost might be.”
Protesters also carried banners urging the region's MPs to resign.
The rally comes on the heels of similar protests in the Naameh area, south of Beirut, and in the northern district of Akkar.
On Thursday, protesters took to the streets in both regions to condemn a plan devised by Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb and a team of experts which envisages reopening the controversial Naameh landfill for a period of seven days and setting up a landfill in the Akkar town of Srar.
Protests were also held or were scheduled to be held in the southern city of Sidon and the Bourj Hammoud area, east of Beirut, after Shehayyeb cited a role for waste management plants in the two regions.
The waste management crisis began in July when the Naameh landfill closed, causing trash to pile up on roadsides and in parking lots and riverbeds.
It sparked broad-based protests in Beirut, where demonstrators gathered again on Wednesday despite a sandstorm to demand a long-term solution to the trash fiasco.
Y.R.
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