2015–2016 Lebanese protests

The ‘National Strategy’ for waste management, drawn up in the years after the Lebanese civil war, saw all the waste from the Beirut, Mount Lebanon region going to a single landfill site.[8] The Naameh facility was opening in 1997 as a temporary, short term site that would take just two million tons of rubbish. 18 years later, the site had taken an estimated 15 million tons of waste.[9]

Despite knowing of the closure, the Lebanese government had no plan in place for dealing with the waste. This led waste contractor to suspend collection in July causing waste to pile up around the city.[10] On 27 August, Sukleen restarted collection but with no functioning dump sites, the waste was stored under bridges and on empty lots around the capital.[11]

While the protests began over the piles of trash around Beirut and the Mount Lebanon region, they expanded to issues of civil representation, corruption and government inefficiency.[12][13]

Protesters blamed Lebanese leaders, who according to them, did not have a long-term vision to solve the ecological issues affecting Lebanon. See Marine environmental issues in Lebanon.

Other issues include daily electricity blackouts, and political bickering that has kept Lebanon without a president since May 2014.[14]

Lebanese army units were deployed in central Beirut after the demonstration degenerated in street fighting between protesters and law enforcement.[15] The Lebanese Red Cross said it treated 402 people in Sunday's protest. About 40 people were taken to hospital.[16] Ambulances ferried out casualties after security forces fired tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon at demonstrators protesting against what they call Lebanon's "political dysfunction".[17] About 200 youths, some wearing scarves or masks to cover their faces, threw stones and bottles filled with sand at police and tried to pull down security barricades.[18] Some demonstrators lit fires. A tree next to a church was set ablaze, road signs were pulled from the ground and shop fronts smashed.[19]

The protest, organized by an online group "You Stink!" along with other civil society groups,[20] attracted an estimated 20000[21] people on the streets of Riad El Solh Square in central Beirut.

By 29 August, more than 100000 Lebanese took to the streets to manifest against the government's corruption. It began as small protest, but it has soon proved to become an uprising, with many protesters calling for a revolution.[22]

• Cedar Revolution
• 2006–2008 Lebanese protests
• 2011 Lebanese protests
• List of protests in the 21st century