The Bright Side: Abidjan landfill transformed into city parkland

France 24

11 hours ago

Beneath the fresh grass and brand-new infrastructure of Abidjan's Akouedo Park lie millions of tons of waste that for decades plagued locals' lives and health.
Transforming landfill into recreational spaces – turning trash into landscaped treasure – has become something of a trend in recent years from New York to New Zealand.
Abidjan, Ivory Coast 's bustling economic hub, has now enthusiastically got in on the act.
For residents of this eastern neighbourhood, covering over a landfill area, opened in 1965 and closed in 2018, is a blessing.
The new park spans some 100 hectares, affording the rapidly urbanising city of some six million people an all too rare green space.
After five years of construction, the urban park is ready to open, though an official date has yet to be confirmed.
The radical change of scenery is a boon as the previous dumping of hazardous toxic waste had been a source of health, environmental and safety problems.
'Good to breathe'
"We suffered a lot," Celestine Maile, who has lived in Akouedo for more than 30 years, told AFP.
Today, "it feels good to breathe", she said, beaming, taking a look around the transformed surroundings.
"There were mountains of garbage, and underneath, water used to flow everywhere," she recalled, of how things once were.
Along with the exposure to odours and pests, the landfill constituted "a major public health problem", according to a 2019 study, which Ivorian scientists conducted on the toxicological risks to people living nearby.
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Its authors recommended the urgent "closure and rehabilitation" of the site, saying people living in the vicinity were "clearly exposed to poisoning from pollutants", including lead, mercury and carcinogenic chromium.
Exposure to such pollution also helped give rise to conditions such as malaria, gastroenteritis and respiratory problems, the researchers said.
"The garbage caused illnesses," stressed Maile, who said she suffers from eye problems linked to decades of living near the dump.
Akouedo had also become a haven for drug dealing where assaults were common, she added.
'Cemetery' resurrected
"That dump really felt like a cemetery," said Séverin Alobo, who heads the office of the traditional chief of the Akouedo district.
For Alobo, the creation of Akouedo Park has brought "repair" to the neighbourhood.
"The name Akouedo will no longer be associated with a landfill, but with a beautiful urban park," said Ivorian Minister of Hydraulics, Sanitation and Health Bouaké Fofana.
"What was lost has been largely regained," he added.
The minister said that 750 direct and indirect jobs had been created as a result of the project, which also includes a market, a middle school and the renovation of two kilometres of neighbourhood roads.
Financed by the Ivorian government to the tune of 124 billion CFA francs ($221 million, 189 million euros), the overhaul also has an environmental component.
The waste stored under the park will now be used for energy resources thanks to a drainage and capture system.
Biogas and liquids resulting from the fermentation of the 53 million tons of accumulated waste are transported to a plant to be converted into electricity to power the park and part of the national grid.
The park has an "Environmental House" too, which Fofana said would host events on contemporary environmental issues.
Visitors will be able to play sports in the park, which includes a tennis court and two football pitches.
There is also a large footbridge that winds through an embryonic tropical forest and shared vegetable gardens.
Like many rapidly urbanising African cities grappling with the challenge of managing waste, Abidjan has found a new, bigger substitute for the Akouedo landfill.
Long the city's only waste storage site, it has been replaced by one with four times as much storage capacity in the Abidjan suburb of Kossihouen.