Oman’s government has approved the construction of an integrated industrial hazardous waste handling and treatment plant at Sohar in the North Al Batinah Governorate, said a top official of Oman Environmental Services Holding Company.

Mohammed Sulaiman al Harthy, executive vice-president — corporate strategic development of the state-owned utility tasked with restructuring and privatising the solid waste sector, said the proposed facility will deal with the estimated 1.47 million tonnes of potentially harmful waste generated annually by the country’s burgeoning industrial sector, according to a report in the Oman Daily Observer.

The facility will serve as the cornerstone of hazardous waste management infrastructure being developed for the entire country and will include specialised landfills and transfer stations in Duqm and Dhofar Governorate, it added.

A 240-hectare site has been allocated for the establishment of the plant at Liwa, not far from Sohar Port, home to the Sultanate’s biggest heavy industrial hub, it further reported.

According to Al Harthy, Sohar accounts for around 90 per cent of the country’s current industrial hazardous waste output, with significant amounts of slag being generated by the metallurgical industries operating within the industrial port and the nearby industrial part.

Approval for the siting of the plant at Liwa has also been green-lighted by the Supreme Council for Planning and Sohar Industrial Port, Al Harthy said.

The complex will include storage facilities and pre-treatment units. There will also be a dedicated waste solidification facility of a capacity of 100,000 tonnes per annum (tpa), alongside a physical/chemical treatment plant designed to process 1,000 tpa of waste. A thermal treatment plant (incinerator) of around 50,000 tpa capacity is envisioned as well.

Additionally, areas have been allocated within the site to accommodate a staggering 28 million cubic metres of industrial slag, which will be used for reclamation.