Mozambique: Capital launches tender to close down huge open-air tip, in an operation worth almost €10 million

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Mozambique: Capital launches tender to close down huge open-air tip, in an operation worth almost €10 million

5:56 CAT | 21 Jan 2025

File photo: Lusa

Maputo City has launched a tender to close the largest open-air dump in Mozambique, an operation worth almost €10 million, including a plan to use tonnes of waste.

‘We have received many expressions of interest from private and foreign companies who say they have the experience and capacity to implement projects of this nature (…) It’s a process that takes time. Just at this stage of the tender, we have given companies 90 days to prepare their proposals,’ João Munguambe, councillor for Infrastructure and Health at Maputo City Council, told Lusa.

Since the incident in 2018, when 16 people died at the site after part of the dump collapsed, the municipal authorities have been receiving various grants for waste management. Still, the actual closure has not yet been scheduled.

‘The closure of the dump is a process and means a series of activities that will take place to close down rubbish disposal there. We’re going to cover the dump with soil,’ explained João Munguambe.

It is estimated that more than 1,200 tonnes of solid waste are deposited on more than 25 hectares of Mozambique’s largest dump in Hulene, Maputo, along one of the capital’s main arteries, Avenida Julius Nyerere, every day.

As part of the closure plan, the municipal authorities are going to evaluate proposals that include the use of more than 35 million tonnes of rubbish on the site, with gas production also being considered.

‘There is organic matter there which, when decomposed, produces gas. So when we cover the rubbish with soil, which will naturally allow vegetation to grow and the rubbish to consolidate, this will produce more gas. So we’re going to put in a gas drainage system that can be utilised,’ he added.

The largest rubbish dump in the Mozambican capital made international headlines when, in the early hours of 19 February 2018, a section the height of a three-storey building, collapsed due to heavy rain and fell on several nearby shanty huts.

Of the 16 people who died there, seven were children, in an episode that raised debate among environmentalists about the impact of the dump, the largest in the country, on a residential area.

Source: Lusa