Al Ghabawi, Amman’s only sanitary landfill facility, serving five million people
- Completion of new Cell 5 will increase Amman’s landfill capacity by another 5 million tons
- Investments will support operations at Ghabawi landfill facing growing amounts of solid waste
- Amman’s citizens to get better waste collection services
Addressing an urgent challenge for the citizens of Amman, the EBRD and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) are financing a new cell at the Ghabawi landfill, the main disposal site for solid waste from the Jordanian capital.
The new cell will increase the capacity of the repository by 11 per cent and will be located next to the four existing units. The facility was built by the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM).
Amman is a rapidly expanding city with the population approaching 5 million people with the arrival of thousands of refugees from Syria. This mounting pressure puts the municipal infrastructure under serious strain.
The fifth cell at Ghabawi will be equipped with leakage-proof lining which will allow the landfill to receive larger amounts of waste, extending the landfill’s lifespan. GAM anticipates that the site will be able to contain a total of nine cells, enough to process the city’s waste until 2027.
For the construction of the fifth cell, the EBRD is providing 3.25 million Jordanian dinar (approximately €3.9 million) to GAM. The loan is co-financed by a £4.25 million grant (approximately 3.9 million Jordanian dinar) from DFID. The construction of Cell 5 commenced in September 2017 and was completed in October 2018.
At an event held today at Ghabawi landfill to celebrate the completion of the fifth cell, the British ambassador to Jordan, Edward Oakden, said: “The international community needs to support Jordan’s continued resilience and stability as it generously hosts large numbers of refugees. Critical infrastructure improvements such as this help ensure that Jordanian communities continue to receive the essential service like solid and waste water management.”
The EBRD is already working with GAM to improve the city’s infrastructure and upgrade Amman’s solid waste management system. A fleet of 101 new waste collection vehicles, co-financed by an EBRD loan and a UK grant, was inaugurated in Amman earlier this week.
To date, the EBRD has provided 67 million Jordanian dinar (€82 million equivalent) in loans to the city alone and the Bank is working with other donors, including the United Kingdom, the European Union (EU), the EBRD’s Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Multi-Donor Account (SEMED MDA)* and TaiwanICDF, who have extended an additional 19 million Jordanian dinar in grants.
