Tunis/Tunisia — The first unit of for the recovery of construction and demolition waste will be created soon in the governorate of Gabes, with a capacity of nearly 400 thousand tonnes per year, Environment Minister Chokri Ben Hassan said on Tuesday.

The minister added, on the fringes of a meeting on the last phase of a study on the sustainable management of construction and demolition waste Tunisia has large volumes of waste estimated at 15 million tonnes per year.

The study underway shows the construction and demolition waste management system is seen as one of projects with high efficiency as the selling prices of recycled materials is estimated at 13 dinars / m3, while the prices of new materials extracted from quarries vary between 1 and 14 dinars / m3.

Funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the survey showed that demolition and construction waste can be re-used in manufacturing new materials which meet technical standards, such as sidewalks, paving of agricultural tracks...

The sustainable management of this waste will help reduce arbitrary landfills, reduce the exploitation of quarries, protect natural resources and establish a culture of partnership between the private and public sectors.

It also encourages private companies to get engaged in this system of upgrading waste which will help cut the cost of real-estate projects.