AECID - Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo

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Despite its small dimensions, the Mediterranean basin currently is home to around 430 million inhabitants. The population has increased by 50% in the past 30 years and during this period there have been significant flows of population from the rural areas to the cities, especially from the coastal areas. This high human concentration increases significantly during the warmest months, due to tourism.

The high population density of the Mediterranean basin is leading to serious environmental tension, taking into account that the intense human activity is linked to an increase in the consumption of all kinds of resources and to the modification of landscapes and of the uses of the land, and, moreover, produces large amounts of waste. Specifically, urban activity and industry are two of the sectors generating the greatest impact on the environment and to which it is necessary to give priority regarding environmental sanitation. At the same time, importance must be given to improving local capacities.

As regards solid urban waste, the countries in the southern and eastern Mediterranean generate less per inhabitant than those in Europe, but this rate is increasing quite significantly. The situation is particularly serious in large cities, where there is very often a proliferation of unregulated waste tips.

Therefore, it is necessary to implement solid urban waste management systems, adapted to the reality and characteristics of each region, ranging from segregation at the source and selective collection to the final appraisal of the waste as a raw material for new products or as a source of energy. As regards urban wastewater, actions should be focused on purification treatment, at least biologically through micro-organisms, before these waters are evacuated to a specific original source (river or sea).

As for industry, it is necessary to implement policies for the minimization of resource use and waste, that is to say, to make the industrial activity much more environmentally-friendly by implementing management systems enabling, on the one hand, the minimization of the consumption of resources, by means of practices of re-utilization and recycling, or modification of processes and/or technologies, etc., and on the other hand, minimizing the production of gas, liquid or solid waste. These management systems must encourage industries to treat part of their own solid waste, to achieve a certain degree of purification of their wastewater, and to reduce their emissions into the atmosphere, if necessary with back-end measures.

Finally, with respect to dangerous solid waste, regardless of their origin (industry, hospitals, etc.), when there is no relevant regulation for its management and treatment, basic regulations must be set down, enabling its safe disposal as regards human health and the environment, in addition to specific treatment for part of hospital-healthcare waste.

All these actions concerning waste, effluents and industry in general must be accompanied by concurrent actions towards recuperating soil that has deteriorated as a result of earlier inappropriate practices.

Actions carried out within the framework of the Azahar Programme must promote the following areas:

• Support for the management and treatment of solid urban waste, including both selective collection and final appraisal of the waste.
• Support for the management of urban wastewater, until it receives secondary treatment.
• Support for the implementation in industry of management systems enabling the minimization of resource use and waste.
• Decontamination and prevention of the contamination of soil, of river basins, of water courses, of the air and of the sea.
• Support for the implementation of environmental management systems and environmental audits. • Support for the development of Clean Development Mechanisms.