Hussein Dakroub| The Daily Star

BEIRUT: Prime Minister Tammam Salam is putting the final touches on a deal over a government plan aimed at resolving the nearly 4-month-old trash crisis following positive talks Friday with Amal and Hezbollah ministers that cleared the way for the implementation of the long-awaited scheme.

Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil and Industry Minister Hussein Hajj Hasan informed Salam during a meeting with him at the Grand Serail of the Amal Movement and Hezbollah’s decision to find a landfill in south Lebanon to substitute for a disposal dump in the Bekaa Valley, removing a major political obstacle to the plan’s implementation.

“Ministers Khalil and Hajj Hasan have relayed a positive response to Prime Minister Salam over a landfill in the south,” a source close to Salam told The Daily Star.

“A Cabinet session is possible at the beginning of next week following Salam’s talks on legal and financial measures to put the trash plan into effect,” the source said.

Khalil, who belongs to Speaker Nabih Berri’s parliamentary bloc, struck an upbeat note on a solution to the garbage crisis following the meeting with Salam.

“The atmosphere is positive concerning the garbage crisis. We have put our information [on an alternative landfill in south Lebanon] in the hands of Prime Minister Salam, who will continue discussions [on legal and financial] measures,” Khalil said.

Asked when the Cabinet could meet to approve Agriculture Minister Akram Chehayeb’s trash plan, Khalil said: “This matter is up to the prime minister. We are ready at any time to attend the session.”

Salam’s meeting with Khalil and Hajj Hasan capped a flurry of intensified efforts by senior officials to avert the collapse of the government by finding a solution to the garbage crisis after heavy rains swept mounds of uncollected waste into Beirut’s streets, raising public health concerns.

Berri and Hezbollah were reported to have informed Salam and Chehayeb of their decision to choose a location for a landfill in the southern village of Kfour to substitute for a landfill in the Bekaa Valley, originally outlined in Chehayeb’s plan, following popular protests in the region.

Salam and Chehayeb have met with ministers on both sides of the political divide in a bid to facilitate the implementation of the plan. Salam has said he will not call for a Cabinet session before ensuring that all the parties represented in the government supported the plan.

The next step will be for the Cabinet to sign decrees to allocate the funds to execute Chehayeb’s plan, which calls on the state to handle Beirut and Mount Lebanon trash over an 18-month transition period, as municipalities prepare to assume waste-management responsibilities.

The Cabinet approved the plan on Sept.9, but it was not until Thursday that Chehayeb was able to secure the necessary permissions to distribute Beirut’s and Mount Lebanon’s trash between landfills in the Akkar village of Srar, other areas and potentially Burj Hammoud.Authorities will also reopen the Naameh landfill for seven days in order to bury a portion of the trash that has been left out to rot in the Beirut and Mount Lebanon regions since July 17.

However, it remains to be seen how the government will respond to popular demonstrations sure to obstruct trucks at Naameh and Srar, where local residents have refused to accept the capital area’s waste.

Education Minister Elias Bou Saab accused what he called the “trash mafia” of hindering a solution to the crisis.

Speaking to the Voice of Lebanon radio station, Bou Saab said he was doubtful rivals would be able to reach a solution to the garbage crisis anytime soon, blaming dominant players in the waste industry. The minister, who belongs to MP Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, criticized the “sides that are covering up for Sukleen for impeding any solution to the crisis.”

Sukleen and Sukomi are subsidiaries of the international contractor Averda, which is led by Lebanese businessman Maysarah Sukkar. Both manage waste in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, though they have curtailed their services since the trash problem started on July 17.

The crisis began after the Environment Ministry closed the overused Naameh landfill on July 17 but failed to provision a waste-management plan for the day after, causing collection services to collapse. The trash crisis has ignited anti-government street protests by civil society groups, which have denounced the entire political class over its failure to resolve the crisis.

For his part, Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea called on the government to enforce the trash plan. “The garbage problem is not impossible. The government has a plan, which is minister Akram Cheheyab’s plan. What is required is for the government to act as a government to carry out its convictions because it is not a ‘mukhtar,’” Geagea said during a ceremony at his residence in Maarab to hand over LF cards to new members.