Email this to a friend   Print this story

I think the site would be interested in an news item from the The East African Standard (Nairobi)
March 1, 2004

The high increase in urban population, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, has had an effect on how cities intend to manage their waste.

Waste management is an increasing modern urban problem that requires concerted efforts from both the public and private sectors.

In the coming years, the success or failure of local government authorities will fundamentally rest on how best they manage their waste.

Rapid urbanisation coupled with soaring urban population has naturally led to a population explosion in cities and urban centers all over the world, but more so, in the developing countries.

In less than 20 years, half of the entire African population is expected to live in cities and urban centers.

Hence, in sub-Saharan Africa alone, urban population is expected to rise to 50 per cent, in 2025, an increase of 14 per cent from 36 per cent in 2000.

In Nairobi, for instance, waste management is such a severe problem that the local authorities stopped, a long time ago, pretending they could do something about it.

Nairobi is currently home to an estimated three million people. By 2020, the city population is expected to approximate 10 million plus people.

If the current solid waste generation in Nairobi is about 2,000 tons per day, the expected tonnage, in the next 16 years, then can only be mind boggling.

Thus, the natural question that follows is, are our local governments and the relevant city/towns authorities prepared to cope with the mounting and humongous waste products that will quadruple in the coming future?

Suffice to say, the quantity of urban solid waste increases in inverse proportions with every rural-urban migration - which is expected to continue rising dramatically - economic development, changing socio-economic incomes and not least, consumption habits.

Increased waste products are also a function of rise in the relative proportion of paper, glass and plastics produced in any given environment.

In Nairobi, most of the solid waste products are from households, industrial plants, (educational and social) institutions, markets, and waste dumped in the city streets - a phenomenon that seems to be worsening by the day and which seems too, to have overwhelmed the City Council.

Unfortunately, for the Nairobi city, only an estimated 40 per cent of the total generated solid waste is collected and disposed. The remaining waste is left unmanaged, leading to the unattended eye sore that is the garbage heaps sites that are found in the city streets and residential areas.

The composition of solid waste generated in the city leaves no doubt that although 60 per cent of the solid waste is biodegradable, plastics, which of course is non-bio-degradable and which currently stands at 13 per cent, will be the city authorities' and environmentalists' future waste management nightmare.

The traditional waste disposal, that of dumping it in ostensibly vacant lands or open dumping designated areas has apparently failed - what with increased population and stricter environmental controls. The result of this had been the doubling of the cost of waste controlled services.

In retrospect, many local authorities have developed coping mechanisms to deal with the mounting waste.

Most of these measures are at the informal level and have not been institutionalised within the respective cleansing and waste disposal department of the local authorities.

Other measures have included the incorporation of the private sector to assist in collection and disposal of waste.


Needless to say, the involvement of the private sector and more significantly the Community Based Organizations (CBOs) is a telling testimony that the local authorities have been unable to cope with the management of solid wastes.

This is despite the fact that on average, waste management absorbs between 30 and 50 per cent of the operating budgets of the local authorities.