Le Havre has moved into the active phase of clearing the former landfills at Dollemard, after a year of preparatory work. The operation targets 312,000 cubic metres of waste lying at the foot of the cliffs along 700 metres of coastline, and €37.3m has been committed to it.
The city is leading the project together with the French State, acting through the environment agency ADEME, and the Normandy Region. The stated aim is to return the cliff site to nature. For Le Havre, the work addresses a long-standing pollution problem on its shoreline, where old dumped waste sits directly beside the sea, and the city describes it as one of the largest coastal clean-up operations undertaken in France.