The facts are worrying. Last Tuesday, the La Chaumière transfer station was engulfed in flames, with thick black smoke visible as far as Bambous. During the night of last Wednesday to Thursday, the Mare-Chicose landfill caught fire. While the authorities struggled to put out the fire and monitor air quality, according to our information, the thick smoke had reached the surroundings of Nouvelle-France. Sanjana, resident of Cluny, testified: “While the usual smell of rotting garbage coming from Mare-Chicose bothers us from time to time, the fumes reach our house every time fires occur and it is dangerous for our health, because we are hosting our grandparents. »
Moreover, this is not the first time that this landfill has experienced fires. On October 25, several firefighters had to be mobilized to control a large fire which broke out on site. On November 22, 2022, another major fire, which occurred in the extension zone of cell 6 of the Mare-Chicose landfill, prompted the Mauritius Fire and Rescue Service to mobilize tankers and equipment on the site from the fire station of Rose-Belle, Mahébourg and St-Aubin. This time again, usual operations at the Mare-Chicose landfill site have been temporarily suspended and will resume as soon as the situation returns to normal, indicates a press release from the Ministry of the Environment.
Several gaps during the processing cycle
The frequency of fires at waste transfer stations or in the Mare-Chicose landfill continues to raise questions about gaps in waste management. On July 27, a devastating fire ravaged the Roche-Bois dump, transforming this peaceful corner into a theater of desolation and despair and making the air almost unbreathable for the residents of the neighborhood. Three people were injured. The director of the Solid Waste Management Division of the Ministry of the Environment then pointed the finger at the operator of the center, affirming that according to initial observations, flammable waste which was not supposed to be at the Roche-Bois center was found there.
The employees of the transfer center had indicated that the original cause of this problem was the oversaturation of Mare-Chicose. As the treatment of waste sent via the center becomes more and more difficult, those responsible refuse to receive the waste or accept it in lower quantities. The remaining waste is then returned to the Roche-Bois center, accumulating over time. Fears had also been expressed that such incidents could be repeated at other transfer centers if this problem was not resolved. A local resident wondered even then: “Was it set on fire on purpose so as not to have to take them to Mare-Chicose? The matter is saturated.”
However, there are also several problems in the “cycle” of waste elimination or treatment, particularly at the level of subcontractors specializing in the transformation of solid, liquid and gaseous waste. Indeed, two months ago, residents of several regions of the country noticed that the frequency of garbage collection was erratic. Contractors operating dumpsters – more than a hundred in this case who are responsible for transporting waste from different transfer stations in Mare-Chicose and depositing residual waste from Mare-Chicose at the transfer stations and the storage basin – had categorically stopped working, interrupting the chain of treatment, recycling and collection of residual waste. As a result, mountains of waste have accumulated at the transfer stations as well as the Mare-Chicose landfill, in addition to the fact that the wastewater ponds resulting from the treatment of the trash are at risk of overflowing.
These subcontractors then cited as a cause the non-payment for seven months of an amount amounting to Rs 80 million by their contracting company, Sotravic Limitée, because the latter would not have received payment from the Ministry of Finance. Moreover, in an article published on September 25, 2024, the express published a copy of the message sent by a Sotravic negotiator to subcontractors. This message, dated June, called on them to take note of the fact that the company had not in fact received payments from the ministry. If Sotravic did not provide any additional clarification on this subject, for his part, the Minister of Finance nevertheless affirmed that everything was in place “For our part, we don’t owe Sotravic a penny.” Ditto for the Solid Waste Management Division of the Ministry of the Environment, which affirmed that the payments made to the “main contractor” were up to date and that they did not know what was happening between the latter and the subcontractors .
Furthermore, several reports denounce the dangerous situation that this landfill was facing due to its long-standing mismanagement. For example, the Audit Office had, in its report entitled Environment Protection – Ensuring Proper Disposal of Hazardous Wastes, made a visit in May 2017 and highlighted that, among other things, electronic waste was exposed in open spaces and on the ground. In September 2022, Marcos Orellana, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the impacts on Human Rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous products and waste, reported on the alarming situation of waste management in Mare-Chicose landfill.
Also in July 2023, subcontractor truckers were chomping at the bit in the face of the delay in operations at Mare-Chicose, citing the oversaturation of the place, the inefficiency of the equipment used in the face of the quantity of waste dumped daily on the site, as well as the platform intended for waste collection which is itself small. While around 504,000 tonnes of waste are generated annually and only 4% of this volume is recycled, and the authorities pass the buck, fires that occur too often continue to sound the alarm.
