Environmental activists reject decision to import 2.5 million tons of European waste

Agadir24

Environmental activists have called on the Minister of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development, Leila Benali, to reverse the decision to license the import of more than two and a half million tons of household waste and rubber tires from European countries, given the negative effects of this step.

These activists expressed their rejection of Minister Benali’s decision, warning of its dire consequences on the environment, citizens’ health, air pollution, and emissions of toxic gases and greenhouse gases, which are the basis of climate change, not to mention radioactive waste.

In this context, the Environmental Group of Northern Morocco reported that “the Kingdom’s ability to recycle local waste does not exceed 10 percent of the local product, while the ministry seeks to import waste from European countries and turn the country into a dumping ground for the waste of these countries.”

The environmental group warned in a statement that “burning rubber tires to produce energy is an environmentally unfriendly method that contributes to air pollution and the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which causes climate change.”

The same source indicated that Morocco has adopted a set of laws, implementing decrees and strategies to preserve the environment and sustainable development, while the minister announced the import of about 971 thousand tons of waste from France, 20 thousand tons from Italy, more than 30 thousand tons from Spain, 1.5 million tons from Britain, 60 thousand tons from Sweden, and 100 thousand tons from Norway.

The group considered that this decision “contradicts the Moroccan constitution, which stipulates the citizen’s right to live in a healthy environment, and the laws and strategies adopted by Morocco to preserve the environment, sustainable development, and fair energy transition,” calling for “not turning Morocco into Europe’s garbage dump.”

Accordingly, environmentalists called on the Minister of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development to rescind the licensing of the import of waste and rubber wheels from Europe, stressing that this decision “contradicts the spirit of citizenship.”

They called on the minister to commit to her mission of “preserving what remains of the environmental dignity of Moroccan citizens, who are in dire need of information systems and industrial, agricultural, medical and economic technologies that contribute to real prosperity, facilitate their lives and improve their standard of living, instead of importing European waste that exhausts, pollutes and destroys the Moroccan ecosystem,” according to the statement.