Gabes Governorate

Gabes Governorate reveals the metabolic costs of industrial digestion—since the Tunisian Chemical Group (GCT) established operations in the 1970s, this 7,166 km² coastal region has processed phosphate into fertilizers that green Western fields while poisoning its own population. The GCT complex produces phosphoric acid, diammonium phosphate (DAP), triple super phosphate (TSP), and fluorides across 10 sub-factories between Ghannouch and Chott Salam districts. But phosphogypsum—radioactive processing waste—has been dumped untreated into the Gabes Sea since 1972, creating what researchers call 'vectors of industrial pollution' that elevate cancer and cardiovascular mortality among workers and residents. This represents parasitism at industrial scale: the host organism (Gabes's 374,300 residents) supplies labor and environmental commons while suffering health externalities. Yet the relationship persists because the city's economy depends on GCT's financial contribution—shuttering the plants would devastate not just workers but the entire community. The governorate embodies resource curse dynamics: rich natural endowments generating national GDP while local populations bear disproportionate environmental and health burdens. Gabes functions as the liver of Tunisia's phosphate metabolism—processing toxins that other organs cannot handle, accumulating damage with each cycle.