One cold, rainy morning, I watched two young men pull handcarts towards a small dumpsite in Nairobi’s Tena Estate. That got me thinking. There are hundreds of small informal garbage collectors dotting the city. These men fill a glaring garbage collection gap ignored by both the current and previous administrations.
Early last month, the Nairobi County Assembly approved a motion calling for the introduction of the Nairobi City County Waste Management Authority to tackle the garbage quagmire. Although it is yet to be assented to by the governor, its very tabling attests to the enormity of the challenge of disposing of solid waste. It's time Nairobi learned from the best practices in garbage collection globally.
Almost a decade ago, Nairobi’s Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan attempted to resolve the garbage conundrum. Supported by UNEP, it was to finally get rid of the ubiquitous waste. That didn’t happen. This year marks the end of this 2010-2020 Master Plan. The Plan's 10 targets have barely been met. The transition from the Nairobi City Council to the Nairobi County Government hasn’t helped much.
Nairobi’s 4.4 million residents and thousands of businesses generate 2,500 to 4,000 tonnes of waste daily. Much of this waste is visible on road pavements, street corners and secluded spaces. According to a 2018 World Bank report, only half of Nairobi’s waste is collected for disposal.
Two years earlier, a report by the National Environmental Complaints Committee said only 10 per cent of the waste was collected. This means the waste collection is getting worse
Separating waste as a matter of policy should be the first thing to do. Any biodegradable waste should be harnessed for biogas and compost, both potential revenue earners. Sweden is a trailblazer in managing waste and turning it into sellable commodities.
In 2018, only one per cent of Sweden’s waste ended up in a landfill. The rest was either recycled or turned into energy. Indeed, waste became so valuable to Sweden that in 2016, it imported 1.4 million tons of waste for 50 million euros. This supports the assertion that taka ni pato — waste is gold.
Nairobi needs to follow in the footsteps of Sweden, and treat waste as a valuable commodity. UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook for Youth publication reports that a team of young engineers in Cairo is using waste oil to produce biofuel. They are using their engineering know-how to inject value into a product previously discarded as waste.
This is the pathway our young people should emulate. Nairobi county should create opportunities for young innovative people who create valuable solutions from garbage. After all, garbage collection tenders in Nairobi average Sh200 million per year. A sizable fraction of this money should go to social entrepreneurs with innovative solutions, not just close-minded truck owners.
If we treat waste as a valuable commodity, it will become an integral part of the circular economy’s value chain. Such an economy eliminates — or at least minimises — waste through reducing, reusing, recycling, refurbishing and remanufacturing. In a circular economy, there is very little waste because what one sector considers waste is embraced by another sector as a valuable raw material.
Thus, the agricultural sector will have a vested interest in all organic waste because hidden in that waste is fertile compost. That leftover ugali will suddenly become valuable, as will the empty cooking oil bottles that are needed in large numbers in other manufacturing sectors. What Nairobi needs, therefore, is not a revival of the Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan but a Nairobi County Circular Economy Plan.
In May 2018, the state's National Sustainable Waste Management Bill was subjected to public hearings. It's a major step in the right direction since it embraces circular economy principles. The Bill has ambitious but achievable goals for waste: five per cent incineration, 30 per cent recycling and 60 turned into manure. If this happens, only five per cent of waste will end up in landfills.
We shouldn’t wait for laws to be enacted because ultimately, it is the people who make a difference. It is they who benefit when their spaces are cleaner. We, therefore, need to take decisive steps to achieve zero-waste status through the circular economy model.
The writer, the Kenya Universities Students’ Association patron, is a youth and women's empowerment crusader in the Agnes Kagure Foundation. [email protected].
(Edited by V. Graham)
