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Off the eastern coast of Tanzania, Zanzibar and its heavenly beaches are attracting more and more tourists, especially French tourists. Inland, “Special Envoy” was able to discover the other side of the postcard: a gigantic wild dump where their kilos of waste pile up.
Zanzibar… an evocative name of adventure becoming synonymous with mass tourism – and its misdeeds. With its beaches bordered by turquoise waters, the Tanzanian archipelago is an increasingly popular exotic destination for the French. A vacationer’s paradise, but the big waterfront hotels springing up like mushrooms to accommodate them would rather they ignore its hidden side. To help us discover it, Justin Madho and his colleague David took the “Special Envoy” team to the end of a dirt road.
For hundreds of meters, a huge wild dump. Heaps of plastic debris, food scraps… All this waste affects groundwater by infiltrating the soil with the rain, polluting water supplies, and releasing toxic methane for the inhabitants.
A ticking time bomb for Zanzibar
Some litter bears the mark of a large local hotel, as all comes directly from the consumption of tourists. And as their number increases, so does the amount of garbage. On average, everyone produces 2 kilos of waste every day. Multiplied by hundreds of thousands of people, they represent a real time bomb for Zanzibar. Local municipalities, who are responsible for garbage collection, are completely overwhelmed.
The waste management company that employs Justin and David is the only one here to take care of their recycling, sending them abroad by boat. The company works with a hundred hotels. But since its services are expensive (up to 2,000 euros per month), many establishments prefer the illegal route. It is this parallel system that the two colleagues wanted to show us. “They choose the cheapest option, they explain. They give a little money to someone who comes and dumps everything here.” At the same time, the journalists see arriving at the end of the path a truck loaded with waste… which turns around when they notice their presence. He will probably go and unload his rubbish a little further.
Excerpt from “The rush to Zanzibar”, a report to see in “Special Envoy” on June 29, 2023.
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