By Alexander Liddington-Cox, Lebanese Streets Lebanese environmental movement YouStink has called for fresh protests in Beirut’s Riad Al-Solh square on Thursday, after rejecting the government’s waste disposal plan for failing to achieve the movement’s goals. YouStink quickly erupted after residents of Naameh forced Beirut to confront its unsustainable garbage practices by finally enforcing the closure of the local landfill. On August 29, crowd numbers peaked at a YouStink protest, thanks in part to a strike at waste disposal company Sukleen flooding Beirut’s streets with garbage yet again. Last week, the movement rejected the government’s plans for short-term garbage relief with an eye towards long-term sustainability. The “Chehayeb Plan,” named after Agriculture Minister Akram Chehayeb and approved by the cabinet, puts Lebanon on a path towards a sustainable garbage disposal system, including sorting garbage at the source. In exchange, the plan includes temporarily reopening the Naameh landfill to alleviate the city of 100,000 tons of garbage that have accumulated out of view, in makeshift sites in and around the city, since the landfill’s closure. There are also plans to open two sanitary landfills in the northern district of Akkar and the Masnaa…
YouStink Campaign Gears Up for More Protests After Continued Government Failure
October 5, 2015
