Garbage mountains circle Beirut as crisis festers

BEIRUT: On the outskirts of the Lebanese capital, mountains of putrid garbage are rising and tempers are flaring as a months-old rubbish collection crisis shows no signs of being resolved.
Desperate Beirut has taken to dumping its rubbish in huge makeshift piles, with the largest -- in Karantina at the northern entrance of the city -- neighbouring the trendy nightlife areas of Mar Mikhael and Gemmayzeh.
For Ali Yaacoub, a driver working for a firm based near the "Karatina mountain", it has become a blight on his city.
"The situation has become unbearable," he said. "We spend six hours here each day among the smells and the insects."
Hopes had been raised that the crisis, which dates back to mid-July, would come to an end after the government approved a plan last week following the biggest anti-government protests in years.
The plan called for waste management to be turned over to municipalities in 18 months, the temporary expansion of two landfills and the reopening for seven days of the Naameh dump south of Beirut, which was closed in July.
Trash collection resumed but on Monday the main private company involved, Sukleen, announced it was throwing in the towel as improvised dumps reached full capacity.