On the decentralisation of Solid Waste Management in Lebanon: a viable solution to the “waste crisis”?

If “the history of the city, to a large extent, is a history of struggle against rubbish” it can be claimed that in spite of the struggle, since the “waste crisis” started in 2015, Beirut and other cities in Lebanon have been fighting back. Two years after the beginning of the “waste crisis”, the mobilisation towards a more efficient disposal of waste has gone beyond the protests that broke out in the infamous summer of 2015. The mobilisation has taken the form of practical initiatives that aim at dealing with the waste in a sustainable manner. Through interviews with several representatives of NGOs, enterprises and citizens working towards an environmentally sustainable Solid Waste Management (SWM) in Lebanon, this paper explores the multiple reactions to the “waste crisis” and the increasing decentralisation of SWM in the country.