Oued Smar Landfill

The Oued Smar dump sat at the heart of the Wilaya of Algiers for decades, one of Algeria's most visible environmental liabilities. Uncontrolled leachate and biogas, dense residential neighbourhoods on its boundary and its impact on the capital's landscape made closure and conversion to public space a national priority.

Libanconsult delivered the original closure and rehabilitation design in 2006 for the Ministry of Urban Planning and Environment, updated it between 2009 and 2015 under the National Agency for Solid Waste, and supervised construction from 2009 to 2021 - covering feasibility, detailed design, execution studies, site supervision and the design of the park, leisure centre and waste-to-energy unit built over the capped site.

The works capped 430,000 m2 with VLDPE geomembrane and drainage geogrid, installed a 720 m3/day reverse-osmosis leachate treatment plant, biogas extraction and twin-line incineration (2 x 2,500 Nm3/h) feeding a waste-to-energy unit, 2,500 lm of concrete runoff drainage and 2,800 lm of trapezoidal drainage channels, together with a new peripheral road and site infrastructure.

The rehabilitation permanently removed one of Algiers' largest environmental hotspots and returned the site to the city as a green park with a leisure centre.