Lebanon is being hit by a “garbage storm” that is proving to be an embarrassment to the political establishment, which has demonstrated its incompetence and inability to address the country’s issues once more. 

Trash is piling up in the streets of Beirut as the landfill of Naameh has stopped accepting the garbage of the capital. 

Naameh has been open since 1997. It was scheduled to close July 17. Since then, residents of Naameh and nearby villages, south of Beirut, have prevented trucks from reaching it to unload trash.

As if the landfill problem was not enough, the contract of Sukleen, the company in charge of Lebanon’s sanitation, also expired this month, piling more misery on the streets and environment. 

This smelly controversy casts doubts over the reasons for the existence of the Lebanese state. A government that fails to pick up the trash in the 21st century is a weak entity that does the people no good.

Even as the country drowns in garbage bins, Lebanon still has not implemented steps to solve the problem. The bids for new companies to replace Sukleen have been delayed, as the crisis looks certain to drag. 

The garbage scandal is not an surprising issue, though; it is the product of an era of governmental negligence and shortsightedness in a dysfunctional system based on patronage and sectarianism. Lebanon is currently without a president, while its parliament and army chief remain in office after the expiration of their Constitutional mandates. No budget has been passed and the electricity crisis is only getting darker.

But what makes the garbage scandal even more bewildering is that the dates for the end of Sukleen’s contract and the closure of the Naameh landfill were common knowledge among politicians. But nobody did anything about it. 

Also, political calculations are among the reasons for the delay in bids for sanitation companies, which raises suspicions of corrupt backdoor deals. 

In any democratic country, such a scandal would have led to the resignation of all individuals responsible for the problem. But Lebanon is a republic with no accountability, where leaders rely on the unquestionable backing of their sectarian communities to get away with the unthinkable. 

And in the absence of the presidency and the lack of action in the parliament, the cabinet which represents all constitutional powers in the country, is a necessary evil. The only alternative to the cabinet would be a power vacuum that might suck the country into the turmoil that has been wreaking havoc in neighboring Syria. 

The most dangerous event to come out of this crisis was the localized nationalism, with certain areas’ refusal to help Beirut clean up its trash. This trend endangers the already frail fabric of the Lebanese society, as threats of the creation of a federalism of landfills for sects and provinces grow. 

The Lebanese people are known for their perseverance. They survived a 15-year civil war and even managed to weather regional wars and international conspiracies, but the piles of garbage are growing to an unbearable point. The obnoxious smells and health risks are following citizens to their homes and workplaces. There is no escape.

People are united in misery. The piles of trash are raising the Lebanese above their differences, as social media users are already celebrating the birth of a new kind of national unity in garbage bins.

It is ironic, however, that Lebanon has survived seamlessly without a president for the past 14 months but is desperately panicking at the absence of garbage men. 

But what the presidency and the garbage pickup have in common is that they are both multi-dimensional complicated issues.

As the Lebanese Minster of the Environment told The Arab American News, “If my resignation would help solve the issue, I would have left my post instantly, but this is a complicated matter that is not the doing of one person but multiple intermingled factors.” 

-Imad Marmal is a correspondent for The Arab American News in Beirut. He writes for major dailies in Lebanon and hosts a political talk show on Manar TV.