The Environment Ministry plans to request at least $5 million to establish a so-called sanitary landfill in place of a local dump in Dinnieh whose closure earlier this year has led garbage to pile up in several municipalities.
Instead, local unions of municipalities in Minyeh-Dinnieh, Koura, Zgharta and Bsharri had paid a private landowner to use the site, beginning with Dinnieh in 2002 .
According to Mustafa Seif, a family member of the landowner, who runs the landfill, the municipalities owe him some LL200 million ($130,000).
In any case, the site's closure has led trash to amass in various sites across the four districts, spilling over into some of the 1,000 or so informal dumps that are estimated to have sprung up since the 2015 garbage crisis.
In an attempt to solve this, Jreissati recently submitted a road map to the prime minister -- 25 sanitary landfills would be established across the country in place of the informal dumps, many of which line roadsides or spill into valleys and are burned regularly.
Jreissati said he would need $5 million or $6 million to buy the Aadoueh dumpsite alone.
Jreissati said following the meeting that the locations of waste treatment sites would be studied in a meeting Friday.
Jreissati held a news conference Friday to respond to Frangieh's comments.
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