“City Blu” & “Ramco”, the two companies tasked with picking up our garbage, want to get paid in dollars but there are no dollars available. As a result, the first decided to stop its operations for few days, causing waste to pile up on the roadsides in the districts of Baabda, Chouf and Aley. As for Ramco, they did not stop yet but they need a solution the soonest.

A meeting took place today at the Finance Ministry to resolve this matter, prompting “City Blu” to resume its garbage collection afterwards as a sign of good faith.

Even if they secure dollars to pay them on the short run, the garbage crisis is far from being over. As long as there’s not a clear strategy to reduce waste & increase recycling, we will keep on “burning” our dollars and we will eventually end up burning our garbage with Jamal Itani’s incinerators.

Keep in mind that when garbage is not piling up in the streets, it’s piling up in mountains of untreated & mismanagement landfills.