Win for Tunisian town facing landfill crisis as government backs down

After demonstrations see police use teargas and the death of one man, work begins to clear waste in Sfax after decision to move site

Work has begun to clear 30,000 tonnes of household rubbish from the streets of Tunisia’s “second city” of Sfax after the government backed down in a long-running dispute over a landfill site.

Residents and activists in Agareb, where the current dump is located, said the site, opened in 2008 near the El Gonna national park, was a risk to human health. In recent weeks, unrest in the region has escalated, with access to the site blocked and police using teargas against demonstrators from the town. One man, Abderrazek Lacheb, has allegedly died after being caught up in the demonstrations, although the police have denied his death was due to teargas.

Moadh Akacha, 34, an activist from Agareb, said he was satisfied with the government’s decision to relocate the landfill. “The new site is 62km [39 miles] away from Sfax, about 22km [14 miles] from Agareb,” he said. “It’s a good location, but it’s only a temporary one. We’ll have to see what happens.”

Civil unrest about the site has marked the first signs of public disobedience since President Kais Saied’s power grab in July, which saw him suspend parliament and remove immunity from prosecution for its members. The move remains a popular one with the Tunisian public, wearied by the country’s economic stagnation, the pandemic and the factional squabbling of parties and politicians.

However, in Agareb, which Saied visited as a private academic before the election of late 2019, there remains a sense of betrayal over the law professor who had urged them to protest and the president who sent the police in with teargas.

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Having been in continuous use since its founding in 2008, the accumulation of waste at the landfill, a portion of which is said to be industrial, will take many years to clear. No details were made available by Anged (Agence Nationale de Gestion des Déchets), the government agency overseeing the country’s landfills, on its commitment to the Agareb site. However, the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), which has suspended its calls for a general strike across the region on Friday, has made the postponement of industrial action conditional on the site being made safe.

Waste management remains a significant problem for Tunisia. According to a World Bank report, less than two-thirds of rubbish in the capital, Tunis, is collected. Corruption within the sector has become a growing concern. In July 2020, the country’s then prime minister, Elyes Fakhfakh, resigned after being accused of corrupt links to the waste industry. In December, the environment minister was sacked and arrested after he was allegedly linked to an attempt to clandestinely import a shipment of Italian waste into the country.