Morocco has signed a concession to build a $1.5 billion waste-to-energy plant in Casablanca, a landmark project aimed at modernizing waste management in the country’s largest city while generating electricity from municipal waste, according to Reuters. A consortium led by Swiss-Japanese company Kanadevia Inova, with Moroccan energy company Nareva and Japan’s Itochu, signed the agreement with the Casablanca city government to develop the facility. Once operational, the facility will process about 1.5 million metric tons of waste annually and generate about 115 megawatts of electricity from municipal waste, supplemented by landfill gas and solar power. The project will process municipal waste from Casablanca while recovering landfill gas from the Mediouna landfill, Morocco’s largest landfill site, which has been a major source of pollution and odors for decades. By removing waste from the landfill, the facility is expected to reduce methane emissions and improve environmental air quality in the surrounding area.