{"id":5832,"date":"2019-10-09T09:50:48","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T06:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=5832"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:35","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:35","slug":"i-looked-at-how-polluted-nairobi-river-is-what-i-found","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/10\/09\/i-looked-at-how-polluted-nairobi-river-is-what-i-found\/","title":{"rendered":"I Looked At How Polluted Nairobi River Is. What I Found"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By<\/strong> Damaris\nMbui<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot happens along the course of the Nairobi River as it\nmakes its way from the north west to the south east of the city. It\u2019s mainly\nused by residents of low-income settlements as a source\nof water<\/a> for cleaning homes, bathing and for watering crops. But it\u2019s\nalso used to discard household and human waste as many homes don\u2019t have\ntoilets, and industrial waste is\nfrequently<\/a> dumped in the river.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve done<\/a> studies<\/a> on\nthe quality of water in Nairobi River focusing on the presence of metals in the\nwater. I found that the levels of lead, copper, chromium, zinc and manganese\nwere far beyond those allowed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and\nKenya\u2019s National Environment Management Authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also found harmful levels of bacteria. The levels of\nEscherichia coli (E. coli) were incredibly high \u2013 up to one million units in\n100ml of water. There should be no E.coli in drinking water. It\u2019s presence\nindicates faecal contamination, which could lead to periodic outbreaks of\nwater-borne diseases like typhoid, cholera and dysentery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are major\nconcerns<\/a> about the state of the river, which runs through the heart of\nthe country\u2019s capital \u2013 Nairobi. And Kenya\u2019s national environmental management\nagency is cracking\ndown<\/a> on industries accused of discharging pollutants into the river.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there are huge holes in the governance of the river and\nthe city\u2019s waste, which have enabled the river\u2019s poor condition. More needs to\nbe done to address this, especially as the city continues to grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Waste management<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There needs to be better management of industrial\nwaste. Policies\nthat govern<\/a> waste water purification from industries aren\u2019t strictly\nfollowed, often due to a lack of official monitoring. The heavy\nmetals<\/a> I found indicate industrial waste that comes from paint,\nleather and electroplating industries, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another problem is a lack\nof<\/a> proper solid waste management. Kenya currently doesn\u2019t\nhave<\/a> landfills, most solid waste is disposed of in uncontrolled, open\ndumpsites. An engineered\nlandfill<\/a> is deliberately constructed to handle waste. It\u2019s lined at\nthe bottom to prevent groundwater pollution and has a system to collect and\ntreat leachates and capture biogas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Human waste is also not treated properly. There are very few\nsanitation facilities in slums and other informal settlements, so residents\nwill use the river to dispose of their waste. For those with sanitation facilities,\nthere are just two sewage treatment plants that service Nairobi \u2013 Ruai and\nKariobangi. But Ruai can\u2019t process very much waste water and most\nof<\/a> the equipment at the Kariobangi treatment plant has broken down<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read\nmore>>><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Damaris Mbui A lot happens along the course of the Nairobi River as it makes its way from the north west to the south east of the city. It\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}