Three hundred residents descended on Beit Mery’s civic square Monday evening, angry over a plan to build a waste sorting and treatment plant in a picturesque valley nearby.

“You don’t cut down trees to build a trash plant,” Serge Khazen, a mechanical engineer and resident of the town, told The Daily Star.

Some protesters carried signs emblazoned with slogans against the plan: “A trash plant in the Lamartine Valley? Who can believe it?” “Don’t pollute our water,” “Karantina, Costa Brava, Beit Mery!” – the latter putting the town in the company of notoriously polluted areas.

Those present held a tense, 15-minute back-and-forth with Deputy Mayor Sami Moukheiber, who is also against the plan, before dispersing afterward.