A number of ministers chaired by Prime Minister Saad Hariri convened on Wednesday to tackle the Costa Brava landfill closure after representatives from municipalities union of the southern suburbs of Beirut had started preventing trucks from entering the landfill for fears it will reach its capacity limits in a few weeks.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Mahmoud Qmati, who attended the meeting, explained that finding a solution to the problem was accelerated following the union threats of preventing garbage trucks from entering the landfill if no solution was found within 10 days.

He affirmed that the meeting aimed at setting up a road map to resolve the waste crisis in all of Lebanon, including that of the Costa Brava landfill but that there are a short-term solution and a long-term one that would take up to four years to be completed.

“Landfills are the only temporary solution to the garbage crisis until a radical solution is reached,” Qmati justified.

“The municipalities union will meet again later today to make its decision of whether to accept the Cabinet’s proposal agreed upon during the meeting, or to keep the landfill closed. The government asked for an additional period to study the matter before the closure of the Costa Brava landfill,” he declared.

The municipalities had previously warned that the daily deposit entering the landfill exceeds the amount originally indicated by the Cabinet which is no more than 1,000 tons of waste per day, after its expansion in 2018 allowing access to trash from Aley and Chouf in addition to Beirut and other areas of Mount Lebanon.

The meeting was attended by Qmati, Hariri, Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil, Environment Minister Fadi Jreissati, head of the municipalities union of the southern suburbs of Beirut, Mohammad Dergham, and several mayors from the municipalities.