Morocco: "Wave" of waste after iftars on beaches

These activists appeal to the environmental awareness of the families who sacrifice to this tradition every year, urging them to keep the beaches clean. "The collective iftar on the beaches is a new phenomenon in Moroccan society... Like all social phenomena, it has its advantages and disadvantages," said Suhaim Mohamed Sohaimi, environmental expert and president of the Zohour Association for the Environment and Sustainable Development.

In a statement to Al Ayyam 24, Sohaimi explained that these collective iftars on the beach "stimulate the economy of coastal cities, but the waste left by families pollutes the sea water and sand," deploring "the indifference and unconsciousness" of Moroccan families who engage in such behaviors that he considers irresponsible.

In the same vein, Mohamed Tafrouti, writer and president of the Environmental Perspectives Center for Environmental Media and Sustainable Development, urges the families concerned to take care of the beaches and preserve the environment. He denounces an ecological drama, stressing that "most of the waste thrown unconsciously on the beaches ends up in the stomachs of fish... All this, we will inevitably find it on our plates when we consume these fish."

Mohamed Tafraouti also called on local authorities, in coordination with the environmental police, to install garbage cans as well as prohibition signs, and to conduct awareness campaigns along the beaches, insisting on the need "to issue fines against anyone who leaves waste on the beaches after an iftar."