Trash and the towns

Lebanon’s garbage crisis predates independence. Case in point, the country’s first sanitary landfill was built in the 1990s even though the technology emerged around the 1920s. Despite repeated policy failures by successive governments, however, the situation could be turning around. Their own devices By law, municipalities in Lebanon have the authority to handle their own garbage. Beginning in the mid-1990s, the central government contracted waste management in the country’s most populous areas (Beirut and the coastal districts from Jounieh in the north down to the Chouf) to the Averda companies Sukleen and Sukomi. This service area accounts for around 50 percent of the waste Lebanon generates. The rest of the country has mostly been managing its own trash (which means relying on foreign grants or – as is the case in Saida – a mix of grants with foreign and local private investment). Waste collection in Lebanon has long been