The government of Morocco has announced plans to establish 19 landfill and waste recovery centers across the country and have them operational by 2019.
Secretary of state for sustainable development, Nezhal El Ouafi revealed the plans and said that out of the 19 facilities set to be built, 11 were already under construction while the remaining will commence in the coming months.
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Waste management centers
Among the projects is Beni Mellal waste recovery centre which sits on a 3.5 hectares of land. The plant which is 30% complete will be able to process 200 tonnes of waste per day. The waste will be used to produce biogas and compost for food waste while the rest i.e. plastic and aluminium waste, will be compacted for other uses.
The government additionally, launched training of agents for the sorting and recycling of waste since the planned facilities will need a considerable and skilled workforce to operate them.
The training will start with 300 people mainly from the cities of Beni Mellal, Tangier, Meknes, Marrakech and Ifrane. The Beni Mellal waste sorting and recovery centre is expected to employ 62 staff.
The secretary of state for sustainable development will fund the construction of the facility whose cost is estimated to be 5 million euros. With the new installations, the government is aiming for a 90% quota for the collection rate. Morocco has made significant progress in recent years in waste collection, in 2008, this rate was only 10% in 2014; it rose to 37%.
