Baljeet Kaur
A widely used symbol of protests in the city of Beirut has been the altered flag of Lebanon with a trash bag taking place of the iconic cedar tree. Though, the citizens confess that it is generating negative publicity but they want to do anything and everything to raise awareness among fellow citizens and instil consciousness among the already paralysed polity of the country. There have been widespread protests across the city against inability of the government to provide a solution to the disposal of city’s garbage.
Problem
Naameh or Naimeh, a town in the mountains of Beirut, was bearing dumping of the trash from whole of central Lebanon for many years – well beyond the planned closure date. Trash reached the brim of the landfill in the summer of 2014. The nearby residents started complaining of the foul smell and other health problems. Seriousness of the harm can be adjudged by the tweet of Imad Bazzi, a citizen of Naameh, who says, “We closed all doors & windows with wet blankets, the smell and smoke are unbearable! My mom is suffocating #Beirut #sukleen”; while Halabi told a news agency that they can’t open their windows because of the gases coming off the dump, and he has invited ministers to come to his place to see if they can tolerate it.”
Angry residents took to streets to register their protest against this practice. Government took notice and promised to find an alternative solution soon. But no such alternative materialised and garbage was still being dumped in the Naameh landfill. Concerned about their health and fed-up of awaiting government’s solution for a year, citizens took it on themselves to solve the issue. In July 2015, as the first step, they again blocked the entry to the landfill and refused to let any other trash bag to get dumped. This led to the present waste disposal crisis in the country.
Effect
The landfill with the capacity to receive 2 mn tonnes of rubbish only for few years, is now has a mountain of over 15 mn tonnes of garbage. As a result of this, on one hand government dumped the rubbish on the popular Mediterranean coast; on the other hand citing the reason of having no place to dispose the garbage, Sukleen the main waste management company in Lebanon stopped working and collecting waste from the households. Sukleen’s contract has also expired this year, and there has been no intimation from government about its renewal.
This has created havoc and serious health hazard in the city with piles of garbage lying on streets, grounds, roads and other public open spaces. Citizens are finding their own way out to dispose of the waste. Some are setting fire to the collected trash, filling up the area with dangerous smoke, local businesses are hiring private service providers to clean the street. But even the cleaners are not able to take the fumes igniting from the garbage piles. The fire also had a damaging effect on the telephone and internet services leaving 600 subscribers knocked out.
Residents of city are expressing their outrage by coming together in mass protests to register their legitimate grievance. Post government’s failed efforts to reach a consensus with respect to tenders from waste management companies, angry mobs dumped garbage outside country’s environment minister, and further demanded his resignation. As a result of excessive police force to counter even the peaceful protests, there have been many clashes between the public and the police. ‘You Stink’ campaign has also emerged which is taking lead in mass mobilising and is pushing for sustainable solution to the city’s waste management problem and nationwide recycling practices.
There has been attempts to divert the effect of the momentum gained by this citizens’ mass movement since July. On one hand, Sukleen is being accused of using this crisis to bargain for a favourable contract from government, on the other – a section within the protestors is accusing government of infiltrating their movement by sending in ‘bad elements’ causing violence during the protests.
Government’s ‘Plan’
Under pressure from the mass up surging and terror of health hazard due to open dumping of garbage on the street, Cabinet held a meeting in September. While the Lebanese police beat the citizens protesting in public with blubs, sticks, and arrested them, Government after rounds of meeting announced their ‘plan’ to resolve the crisis. Apart from immediate cleaning up of the streets and disposing the garbage to unnamed sites, government has again decided to reopen the Naameh landfill, apart from two other new landfill sites for a year, for a week to bargain time to get in place other solutions. At policy level, government resolved to allocate funds to local municipalities to solve such issues at their level – creating decentralisation of waste management. Plans also included a waste treatment plant in southern Sidon.
The activists and citizens have resumed their mass struggle as they are not happy with such announcements. Experts had called for reduction, segregation with better home sorting of trash and recycling of public waste so that organic matter could be created which constitutes 50% of the garbage.
Similar voices in Bengaluru and Mumbai, among other cities in India
“Even our drinking water has been polluted, as is the air we breathe. We don’t need assurances. We only need permanent solutions.”
The above statement might appear to be a ditto of protesters in Beirut, but the story of waste management is similar in Bengaluru as well. Capacity of the landfill site to take waste has long been exhausted, still there have been no plans to manage the future waste. Piles and piles of waste is continuously being disposed at the same site. It is shocking to note that around 250-300 trucks are dumping garbage in a day. Villagers are holding widespread protests in the city and have already blocked the road leading to Dabaspet landfill area. They camped on the road for two days, resulting in long que of trucks ready to dump the unprocessed waste generating by the nearby manufacturing companies.
Mumbai on the other hand can be easily called the city of garbage! The three dumping grounds – Deonar, Mulund and Kanjurmarg – have such huge piles of garbage that the area in total would be largest in the world. Apart from contaminating the air, soil and water for the localities, the already full landfills have become a crisis for the city generating life-threatening diseases. In addition, regular breaking of huge fires in the dumping ground – fuming poisonous gases and smog causing severe health hazards. According to the Municipal Solid Waste rules of 2000, waste has to be segregated in to wet, dry and recyclable. But nothing of this sort can be seen in practice. Neither the citizens are aware nor has the government put in place the system to collect segregated waste in all the wards. Though, separate dustbins are in place at some public places and once in a blue moon trucks are sent to collect the segregated waste but these are minion steps as compared to the tonnes of dumping that is carried in a day. Not to mention the illegal dumping of biomedical waste which aggravates the health hazards.
While the government on the name of solution to this crisis is trying to shift the burden to NGOs – to recycle the waste, public in Kanjurmarg along with local MLA is demanding area wise dumping of garbage in the city of Mumbai. They are not ready to anymore bear the stink of the whole of Mumbai.
While the protests in Lebanon to resolves the waste management crisis has now transformed into a total anti-government stand taking in view the failure of government to provide basic services to its citizens, the metropolitan cities in India are yet awaiting a mass movement perhaps to change the fate of garbage disposal. From mass awareness of gravity of the issue, push for waste management beginning from each household itself, to government’s strict efforts to put in place systems to follow recycling of waste: Indian cities need total and urgent revival.
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