In the Maghreb country, the recycling sector is practically non-existent.

85% of the waste is sent to technical landfills (CET) and the rest accumulates in wild dumps, waste management expert Walim Merdaci told AFP.

The majority of the 11 CETs are supposed to close in 2022, according to Wassim Chaabane, another specialist contacted in Germany.

In Agareb (center-east), a 35-year-old man died, asphyxiated by tear gas, in mid-November, during a demonstration against the reopening of the landfill which serves the million inhabitants of Sfax.

In greater Tunis, where more than 2.7 million people live, similar protests are at risk.

The huge Bordj Chakir landfill receives more than 3,000 tons of waste per day and is filled to the brim.

Only 4 to 7% of household waste is recycled.

"When I started in 2009, it was not as profitable" to recycle, told AFP Tarek Masmoudi, boss of the company African Recycling, based in M'Ghira, near Tunis.

A woman inserts plastic parts into a shredder at a recycling center near the Tunisian capital, November 25, 2021 FETHI BELAID AFP

Since its opening in 2009, the company has continued to grow and today recycles 6,000 tonnes of waste per year, including 1,000 of plastic, explains the 42-year-old industrialist, looking happy when he gets out of a 4X4 luxury.

"Bury What's Worth a Fortune"

The ton of plastic waste that he bought two months ago at 200 Tunisian dinars is now sold to him at 300 dinars by his suppliers, including dozens of "barbéchas" (Tunisian ragpickers), the linchpin of this informal recycling.

In an incessant back and forth, the Tuk Tuks of the ragpickers and lorries bring bales which are weighed, sorted, crushed and then transformed into chips or granules for industry.

In the Tunisian company African Recycling, plastic is transformed into pellets, November 25, 2021 FETHI BELAID AFP

"Recycling is a sector where everything is to be done and which can be a provider of jobs and wealth in Tunisia", estimates the entrepreneur who employs about sixty people directly and more than 200 indirectly.

Its employees are mostly women who, for the most part, "have an unemployed husband and support the whole family", according to supervisor Chadlia Guesmi.

"The State pays between 150 and 200 dinars per ton for the burial. We spend money to bury what is worth a fortune", plague Tarek Masmoudi, furious at the "lack of strategy and vision" of the authorities.

"We don't have time anymore"

"The waste management system in Tunisia is off the mark at all levels, particularly at the collection level," agrees Mr. Chaabane, while acknowledging that setting up selective sorting would take years.

The Anged (national waste management agency), which itself notes a lack of resources, management and planning, promised in its latest strategic plan, a reduction in waste for the years to come, as well as their treatment.

Bales of waste ready to be sorted are unloaded from a truck in M'Ghira, near Tunis, on November 25, 2021 FETHI BELAID AFP

Faced with the saturation of landfills, Tunisia has opted for mechanical-biological treatment (combination of mechanical sorting and compacting operations with composting and methanisation), explains Mr. Merdaci.

But the first projects will only see the light of day in two years.

"We don't have time anymore," he worries.

According to him, in addition, there is a problem of financing the reprocessing of waste.

"Only 25% of citizens pay the housing tax including a tax on waste" which caps at the derisory level of 800 millimes (20 euro cents) per year, while each Tunisian produces at least 365 kg of waste annually.

"We must create a waste management tax and make everyone pay for the quantity they produce," advocates Mr. Merdaci.

This would allow the municipalities that have exclusive supervision to have funds for waste management.

"The transition from landfill to treatment will cost more, but we will gain in terms of the environment," he explains.

A woman working in a plastic recycling center not far from the Tunisian capital, November 25, 2021 FETHI BELAID AFP

For his colleague Mr. Chaabane, "there is an emergency" and "the best solution for cities (to treat large quantities, editor's note) would be incineration, with clean technologies".

Even if such an option would have, according to him, a high cost: 250 million euros per incinerator, without counting the operating costs.

"We've had 10 years of political disruption, 10 years of not making decisions, we have a problem with local residents (to bury waste), and we have a problem with money. The success indicators are at zero", summarizes disillusioned Mr. Merdaci.

© 2022 AFP