“Because of the economic crisis and COVID-19, the production of garbage dropped by 30 to 40 percent,” he said, noting that if current waste production was on par with pre-crisis levels, the country’s two coastal landfills would likely have already reached capacity. He added that the only reason garbage has not escalated into a full-blown crisis is that most Lebanese simply cannot afford to produce as much waste as they used to. Two key sorting plants destroyed in the devastating Beirut port explosion last year have yet to be repaired.Įnvironment Minister Nasser Yassin told Al Jazeera that he is trying to get the government to prioritise the waste problem, but it has not met in more than a month because of political squabbling. The cash-strapped government is short on funds to pay the waste management company contracted to collect half the country’s garbage. There is no shortage of woes plaguing the country: widespread poverty, power cuts, fuel and medicine shortages, eye-watering inflation and an entrenched class of political elites who have paralysed government while the rest of the country sinks deeper into crisis.Īnd if that wasn’t bad enough, waste management is emerging as Lebanon’s latest proverbial dumpster fire.

Beirut, Lebanon – A man parks his scooter near a row of dumpsters, dons a headlamp, and jumps inside a massive waste receptacle, searching for cans and other scraps to sell on.ĭumpster divers in Lebanon have an embarrassment of waste to sift through these days – including on the streets of the capital, Beirut, where rubbish has been piling up.

State of decay 3 fuel efficiency