The Immediate Halt to the Landfill and the Mountains of Waste in Tripoli Encapsulates the Subject of the Lawsuit Issued by “United for Lebanon” (UFL), Green Globe, and Their Consociates in the North

On the 12^th of July, 2019, the legal team of the UFL Alliance, Messrs. Rami Sayegh, Dr. Yehia Al-Hasan, Mr. Ahmad Al-Abdullah, and the Green Globe Society, represented by its chairman Samir Skaf, filed a lawsuit before the Judge of Urgent Matters in Tripoli, registered under No. 683/2019—before the very eyes of the Council for Development and Reconstruction, the Federation of Municipalities in Al-Fayhaa, BATCO, and AMB—in the pursuit of adjuring the instantaneous cessation of the operations in the new landfill founded in Tripoli beneath the name of, “The Provisional Naval Landfill”, due to its originating in the contamination of the sea, as well as the health and environmental hazards effectuated as a consequence of the initial mountain of waste and the peril of its subsidence. The ancillary objective of the precedent lawsuit concerns itself with not only the obligation of the Federation of Municipalities to cultivate a reindustrialized treatment policy sufficiently capable of impeding its overwhelming flow—which is taking a fundamental part in the disruption of the landfill and the sorting plant—but also the suspension of the financial splurge resulting from the ineffectiveness of the sorting plant. Withal, it is within the province of the lawsuit to instigate the discontinuance of the radix of the malodorous odors reeking from the waste mountain, the landfill, and the plant in Tripoli, as well as to initiate the activation of the operative nature of the sewage refinery in the city and the consummation of the connection of all the networks connected to it as a means of both obstructing their pollution of the coast and the sea, and compensating its retardation over the course of 10 years subsequent to its establishment.

The following suit came against the background of the verdict lodged by the Council of Ministers during the meeting convened on Friday on the 11^th of January, 2018, in laying the foundations of a sanitary landfill adjacent to the current landfill in Tripoli in accordance with the advisory’s study proffered to the Council for Development and Reconstruction, wherein it is advised, afterwards, to endeavor in the contribution of the closure of the current landfill in compliance to the proposal of the CDR. Thus, the repercussions left in the wake of such a decision is a palpable, multifaceted, environmental catastrophe no longer efficient in being tolerated in light of the garbage mountain left without treatment, in addition to the new maritime landfill which is incapable of withstanding the flow of waste bombarded upon it from the Federation of Municipalities in Al-Fayhaa.

The ensuing suit was filed by UFL, Green Globe, and their consociates after procuring a module of the documents and a set of conclusive evidence. Posterior to conducting a concatenation of sensational inspection tours—including the northern districts, the most recent of which was the District of Al-Menneyah-Al-Denneyah on the 12^th of July, 2019—the blatancy of the transformation of the streets into colossal “nuisance grounds” were exhibited, wherein the preponderance of its waste is being incinerated and, in turn, coating the atmosphere with noxious smells and carcinogenic substances. Additionally, the occurrences within the Adweh landfill, whose location tends to directly adjoin the river, were documented with their virulent fluid pouring into it at a time where the sorting plan was undergoing termination and desertion despite the millions of dollars spent on it.

The Alliance, Green Globe, and their consociates ingeminate their tenacity in retrieving the right of the Lebanese to their shores, and to halt procedures in all landfills transgressing environmental laws and regulations, all of which impose daily detrimental hazards to the health and safety of citizens, considering that the examinations carried out by the media do not suffice in supplementing a resolution for such cataclysmic waste actualities or such putrid smells fuming from garbage combustion. It is neither sufficient for the central administration of the Ministry of Environment nor the political administration to terminate ailments or the deterioration cast upon the people who are thrust into their own personal inferno. Therefore, they call on the media platforms to nurture their liability in the shadow of political indifference to the contribution of coercing a non-discerning government and congregation of ministries to solemn proceedings aimed at acquiring solutions to address the predicament instead of committing extortion against the people to conceal the waste in any plausible matter or else suffer the dire consequences of the intimidation imposed on leaving the garbage on the streets unattended. This heinous governmental behavior has been employed since time immemorial.

After the debacle in Al-Kora, Zgharta, Bshirri, El-Menneye, and El-Denneye . . . El-Matn, Beirut, and Sour . . . and so and so . . . what’s next?

A despondent and shame-inducing reality, indeed, but the altruistic nerve of the government has “snapped’ . . . Thus, all are invited to bear witness to the catastrophe themselves.