2023-11-18 20:48:59
French soldiers help residents during a distribution of mineral water for the most vulnerable in the Cavani district of Mamoudzou, on the French island of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean, on November 2, 2023. MARION JOLY / AFP
Seventeen million liters of bottled water will be distributed free of charge, starting Monday, November 20, each month in Mayotte, where water flows from the tap barely two days a week. In this French department in the Indian Ocean hit by an exceptional drought, packs of water packed in containers arrive massively by boat, coming from the mainland and the neighboring islands of Reunion and Mauritius.
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This distribution to the entire population, estimated at 330,000 inhabitants – and no longer only to the 55,000 people considered vulnerable – is presented by the government as a logistical operation “exceptional”, mobilizing nearly two hundred soldiers from civil security and firefighters, as well as the services of the seventeen municipalities on the island.
This operation is coupled with another challenge: not to worsen the pollution of the island by recovering these millions of plastic bottles which will be added to all those already distributed or sold in shops. “As early as September, we alerted the prefect of Mayotte so that the water crisis was not compounded by an ecological disaster.recalls Michel Charpentier, president of the Naturalists, environment and heritage association of Mayotte. We are already very late in cleaning up the island. That’s an understatement. In some places, the island and the lagoon are littered with waste. »
“Unprecedented volume”
“I fear a catastrophe, because we already see the damage, deplores Omar Saïd, president of the Wenka Culture association, based in the Kaweni district, north of Mamoudzou, where a gigantic shantytown climbs up the slopes of the hills. Our indicator is the bottle of the Reunion brand Australine, which was massively distributed first. We find them in the ravines. They end up in the mangrove then in the lagoon and finally in the fish. »
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State services recognize that Mayotte will have to manage “an unprecedented volume of plastic packaging”. With the generalization of the distribution of free water to the entire population, it will be necessary to collect up to 11.6 tonnes of plastic waste per day. “The equivalent of what is usually collected in three months at the sorting terminals”, observes Jérôme Josserand, head of the environment, planning, housing and sea department in Mayotte. In 2022, only 45 tonnes of plastics were recycled.
To collect empty bottles, the prefecture will launch the “1 for 1” principle during the second distribution of water bottles. One bottle of water donated for one bottle of water collected. Everyone will have to bring back their empty bottles to receive full ones. “We will teach, we are not bullies”, we qualify the prefecture of Mayotte. The containers which transported the full bottles will be filled with those which are empty.
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