New contractors, 35 points to collect city garbage

Private garbage collectors illegally dumping garbage will soon be out of work and facing the law.

The Nairobi Metropolitan Services has designated 35 garbage collection sites across the city, which will be publicly identified and gazetted.

It plans to introduce bills to rein in private collectors blamed for hazardous disposal of garbage. They will specify who can dump at the collection points.

Major progress has been made clearing 3,000 tonnes generated daily, but years of old waste must be removed.

Director general Mohammed Badi’s team said private collectors have been avoiding Dandora dumpsite, the county's major disposal site.

Most private collectors operate within estates, collecting from houses and charging residents. They dump at points within estates because Dandora charges Sh1,000 per tonne at the weighbridge.

Badi said on Wednesday, "The gazetted points, which are in estates, will reduce the areas where people dump garbage. Once those laws are in place, we will be able to make all the points public. Given our  experience with the gazetted points, we did not want to go full blast as people would be going there instead of Dandora," he said.

Last month, Nairobi had been choking on uncollected garbage which had accumulated in the Central Business District, along roadsides and in the estates.

The pile-up was caused by a delay in the renewal of collectors' contracts, resulting in a three-week lapse before collection resumed.

The old contractors had lost confidence in City Hall due to non-payment and were not willing to engage with them any more.

“We had to let the contracts expire as City Hall was not willing to hand over the contracts as they were legally entered into, so that was the only way to solve the impasse.

"During those three weeks as the old contracts expired, the new ones were put in place leaving no one to collect the garbage and that is why it had piled up,” Badi told the Star. 

NMS had advertised for new contractors just four months before the expiry of the old ones.

There was an over subscription by new contractors who expressed interest, prolonging the time taken to evaluate the bids.

“We finalised everything and the new contractors hit the ground and the uncollected garbage was sorted as now you can see there are no more heaps of waste. They are now at work across the 17 subcounties," Badi said.

More than 1,000 illegal dumpsites are set for closure.

The dumpsites were unearthed by NMS over two months, with most found in Ruai.

However, 73 dumpsites have been cleared and closed, preventing further illegal disposal. NMS is working on the remaining areas.

(Edited by V. Graham)