The city of Marrakech has recently inaugurated a waste sorting and recovery centre. It was built by the company Ecomed Marrakech, the subsidiary of the American group Ecomed, specialised in waste management.
Marrakech, a city in central Morocco, has set up a centre for sorting and recycling household waste. It was recently inaugurated in the presence of the Secretary of State for Sustainable Development, Nezha El Ouafi, the Governor of Marrakech Prefecture, Karim Kassi-Lahlou and many other local authorities.
The infrastructure was built by Ecomed Marrakech, a subsidiary of the American group Ecomed, specialising in waste recovery. With a surface area of 10,629 m2, it has a capacity of 280,500 tonnes per year. The American company plans to expand it by 2029 to 561,000 tonnes per year. The President of the Marrakech Municipal Council, Mohamed Larbi Belkaid, indicated that the centre would then enable 50% of the household waste in the Marrakech municipality to be recovered and the remaining 50% to be processed.
A €5.5 million investment
This project cost 60 million Moroccan dirhams, or 5.5 million euros. The State Secretariat for Sustainable Development has invested 47 million dirhams (4.3 million euros). Of this amount, MAD30 million (‘2.7 million) was used to develop two basins for leachate treatment, the rest was used to build biogas production facilities. This commitment is part of the “partnership for the implementation of the objectives of the National Strategy for Sustainable Development at the territorial level”, says Nezha El Ouafi.
It is also an important part of the National Programme for the Management of Household and Similar Waste (PNDM); a “priority programme” to ensure sustainable development in Morocco. The objective is to catch up with the Kingdom in terms of household waste management. This long-term national programme also aims to generalise waste collection and treatment on a national scale, reduce the environmental problems generated by illegal landfills and work towards controlled and professional landfilling and waste recovery, while encouraging recycling.
Ecomed has no reason to complain about it. The company is building waste sorting and recycling centres in other Moroccan cities, Ifrane in the north and in Mohammedia, a little further west.
Jean Marie Takouleu
