Building the city on its waste: coastal landfill mining in Lebanon

This article explores the operating conditions of coastal landfills in Lebanon, where a waste crisis has been ongoing since 2015. It focuses on two embankments built by the authorities on Beirut’s coastline (at Borj-Hammoud/Jdeydeh and Costa-Brava), which extend the right-of-way of old saturated landfills into the sea while creating new land reserves. By following the flows of waste and construction materials dumped on the coast, this article analyses the ways in which the city is concretely expanding into the coastal space. Based on interviews with public and private actors and an analysis of satellite images, this investigation demonstrates that the landfill mining and the resulting land creation are sources of politico-economic stakes that provide little benefit to the local population.