The municipal group that manages Rabat’s Oum Azza landfill is preparing to dump thousands of tons of pollutants into the Atlantic Ocean.
Rabat – Omar El Hyani, city councilor and elected official of Morocco’s Federation of the Democratic Left (FGD) party, issued a statement on behalf of his party warning the public of toxic waste near Rabat.
“An ecological disaster is about to happen in Rabat,” El Hyani stated in a Facebook post on Friday, December 20. “Thousands of tons of garbage leachate from the Oum Azza landfill could be spilled by truck into the sea.”
Leachate is the liquid that drains or ‘leaches’ from a landfill, containing both dissolved and suspended material. ‘Leaching’ occurs when water percolates through permeable solids.
Generating leachate is a major problem for municipal solid waste landfills because it contaminates surface water and groundwater, posing a threat to humans and causing pollution.
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“These highly toxic leachates have accumulated for years in pools near the landfill and [create] strong ecological and olfactory pollution for the whole city,” El Hyani’s statement continued.
He went on the explain that Al Assima, the municipal group that manages Rabat’s Oum Azza landfill, is preparing to dump thousands of tons of leachate into the Atlantic Ocean. This could trigger an ecological disaster and decimate marine life, El Hyani claimed.
The FGD is demanding that the operation be terminated immediately.
“We cannot remain silent or complicit in the face of an ecological disaster,” the official concluded.
