MP Elias Hankach warned that Lebanon's festering waste crisis has become one of the most costly and mismanaged files in recent history, describing it as “the biggest scam after electricity” and accusing successive governments of collusion, corruption, and failure to produce lasting solutions.

Speaking to Nidaa al-Watan, Hankach said the waste sector has cost Lebanon billions of dollars without providing any proper sanitary or environmental treatment. He noted that waste management costs have been four times higher than in Europe, without sorting or proper landfilling, but rather through what he called “the ugliest environmental crime” carried out along Lebanon’s coast.

Hankach recalled the 2015 trash crisis, when mountains of garbage piled up in Beirut and surrounding areas after the closure of the Naameh landfill. Residents were then promised that the al-Jdeideh landfill would not operate for more than four years, and that financial compensation would be delivered.

“Nothing was implemented,” he said, adding that the exception turned into a norm, with the landfill now transformed into a 40-meter-high mountain of trash.

“This failure is the result of collusion, corruption, and the absence of any radical plan,” he said.

The lawmaker stressed that municipalities should be granted real authority alongside adequate funding, rejecting any attempt to place the full burden on them. He pointed to solutions such as “waste-to-energy,” which he argued could help address Lebanon’s chronic electricity shortages, provided landfills — if deemed necessary — are located far from residential areas and groundwater.

“They cannot be placed in the most densely populated regions,” he said.

Hankach accused the state of deliberately stalling, “looking for a new cell to extend the crisis” instead of adopting a clear national waste management strategy. While acknowledging that the current government is relatively more transparent than its predecessors, he insisted the file remains stuck in procrastination.

He placed full responsibility on the executive branch, questioning how Metn, the district that pays the most in taxes, has been turned into a dumping ground for half of Lebanon’s waste instead of being developed into a tourism and economic hub.

“The coastline could have been invested in for tourism and economic growth, but instead it was destroyed and turned into a landfill,” he said.

Hankach reiterated that the solutions are already known and feasible, but corruption and vested interests have blocked them.

“The waste file has become the biggest scam after electricity, costing billions without any healthy or environmentally sound treatment," he concluded.