- Sakaja's plan is backed by President Ruto who on Sunday announced his government is committed to cleaning up the capital city.
- Dandora dumpsite was officially opened in 1975 with World Bank funds and 26 years later in 2001, it was full, compacted.
Image: ANDREW KASUKU
Dandora dumpsite is infested by marabous storks who don't mind the malodorous smoke and small fires in the filth.
But there are ungloved women and children who must pick their way through mountains of contamination to make a living from saleable trash.
It will take some time to remove the sludge that keep mounting up but Nairobi county will launch the much-awaited Dandora recycling plant in June.
This will eventually turn the filled-up Dandora dumpite waste to electricity. Thewholeproject is expected to take 36 months.
In January this year, City Hall initiated plans to set up a waste energy processing plant in Dandora.
As a result, the county put out an Expression of Interest for the waste plant.
Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja revealed to the Star on Tuesday that the bidding process is at the Request for Proposal stage. The Expression of Interest stage has been successfully completed.
When his administration floated the EOI, 30 international and local firms submitted expressions of interest.
"From the firms/group of firms, total 17, met the requirements in the EOI documents and were shortlisted for the RfP stage," Sakaja said.
The governor revealed the project is expected to take 36 months, but will be subjected to the firms undertaking the project, which will be submitted in the RFP.
Despite Dandora being full, Sakaja highlighted that the dumpsite will still be used by the county until the plant becomes operational and starts to consume the food waste.
The already filledup Dandora dumpsite holds about 1.8 million tonnes of solid waste against a 500,000-tonne capacity.
However, the governor noted that the long-term process to decommission Dandora dumpsite will start immediately the Waste to Energy plant is operational.
Nairobi generates 3,000 metric tonnes of waste daily and most goes to the Dandora dumpsite.
Garbage collection in Nairobi has been a recurrent problem for years.
Former governors Mike Sonko and Evans Kidero were unable to sort the issue.
The Nairobi Metropolitan Services under director general Mohamed Badi also failed to deliver even with the help of facilities from the National government.
A number of vehicles from the National Youth Service were deployed to different estates to help in garbage collection in its first days in service.
Dandora dumpsite was officially opened in 1975 with World Bank funds and 26 years later in 2001, it was considered full.
In 2016, Kenya Civil Aviation Authority opposed plans for the Ruai landfill, saying it fell within the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport flight path.
KCAA argued that the dumpsite, just 10 kilometres from the country’s main airport, would breach the International Civil Aviation Authority requirement that such a facility be at least 13 kilometres from a runway.
ICAO says the movement of birds from a nearby dumpsite can cause fatal accidents or serious damage to the aircraft with bird hits.
During campaigns, Sakaja and his deputy Njoroge Muchiri said the city garbage menace has been a problem for the past two governments.
They said if elected, they would ensure that plans commence to set up a recycling plant that will turn the waste to energy.
In addition, Sakaja explained that the energy plant is very critical in ensuring that Nairobi manages its waste in a sustainable manner.
"This will also reduce our Green House Gas footprint that would have come from the decomposition of waste in open dumping as is the practice now," he said.
Sakaja's plan has received the backing of President William Ruto who on Sunday announced that his government is committed to cleaning up Nairobi.
He said the Kenya Kwanza government has pledged Sh1 billion towards the clean-up.
“We have set aside Sh1 billion and we have identified all effluent emitters and we have completed that exercise. We are going to clean the city of Nairobi and generate electricity out of the refuse. We have a plan for it,” Ruto said.
The President said the national government will work in collaboration with Sakaja to implement the plan.
“I am in agreement with our governor that we will clean Nairobi city. We must bring back the glory of the city by dealing with refuse,” Ruto said.
The head of state reaffirmed that the government intends to use the refuse collected to generate electricity though he didn’t elaborate on how the plan will work.
-Edited by SKanyara