{"id":7165,"date":"2019-12-13T10:16:42","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T07:16:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=7165"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:45","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:45","slug":"the-state-of-solid-waste-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/12\/13\/the-state-of-solid-waste-management\/","title":{"rendered":"The State of Solid Waste Management"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As\nthe world hurtles towards its urban future, the amount of municipal solid\nwaste, an important by-product of an urban lifestyle, is growing faster than\nthe rate of urbanization. The world cities today generate about 3 billion tons,\namounting to a footprint of 1.2kg per person per day and expected to rise to\nabout 4.3 billion by 2025. According to the World Bank (2012), waste generation\nin Sub-Saharan Africa is approximately 62 million tons per year, amounting to a\nfootprint of about 0.65kg per person per day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regions\nwith low-income countries tend to have low waste collection efficiencies.\nMoreover, major cities achieve a higher collection rate than smaller cities.\nThis is well explained in terms of the focus of Municipal Solid Waste\nManagement(MSWM). For instance, in developing countries, MSWM focus on the\ntimely removal of wastes from densely populated areas to maintain hygiene and\nhealth, whereas, thinly populated areas, where empty spaces are available for\nwaste disposal, are not covered by collection services due to limited municipal\nbudgets. This particular discrepancy demonstrates why it is important to use\nthe population covered by the municipal solid waste collection as a public\nservice instead of the statistical population to avoid underestimating\nmunicipal solid waste generation per capita.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MSWM\nsystem in East Africa has changed from the colonial years of the 40s, 50s and\nearly 60s when it was efficient because of the lower urban population and\nadequate resources, to the current status that displays inefficiencies. Solid\nwaste collection demand in East African urban councils has rapidly increased as\nthe urban population increase with the accompanying expansion of settlements\nmostly occupied by the peri-urban poor that receive little or no waste services\nat all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Despite the existence of laws, policies, and regulations on solid waste management, weak implementation has led to towns and cities being overwhelmed by their waste. PHOTO\/ Dandora dumpsite-Nairobi<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

According to NEMA (2014), Kenya has a growing population and urbanization that has put much stress on waste management. Despite the existence of laws, policies, and regulations on solid waste management, weak implementation has led to towns and cities being overwhelmed by their waste. Most local authorities do not prioritize the establishment of proper solid waste systems and hence allocate meagre resources. Most of the counties lack proper and adequate disposal sites hence practising open dumping. Solid waste management is a responsibility amongst all actors including the county government, generators, owners, occupiers of premises and contracted service providers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nairobi,\nwith an estimated population of 3.5 million (National Population Census Report,\n2009), generates a wide variety of solid wastes that cannot be assimilated in\nthe city environment, with of its estimated 3.5 million residents generating\nbetween 200 to 800 gram of solid waste every day. Only half of the estimated\n3000 tons of waste generated every day is collected. On the other hand, Nairobi\nhas no means of safe disposal and only 400 to 600 tons of its waste reaches the\nDandora dumpsites every day. Dandora is the only operational official dumpsite\nof the city waste and its capacity is almost full due to urbanization and\npopulation growth (Njoroge et al., <\/em>2014).\nIn terms of resource recovery, 250-300 tons per day of reusable and recyclable\nwaste is recovered, accounting for only about 8-10% of the waste stream\n(Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan, NCC\/JICA, 2010).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nthe slums, where 55-60% of Nairobi residents inhabit, they rarely receive waste\ncollection services. It is also believed that a majority of the households are\nquite poor and low-income earners which also makes it hard to have formal waste\nmanagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Various\nefforts have been made in a bid to improve solid waste collection and disposal\nsystem, including the practice of sanitary landfilling, where state-of-the-art\nincinerators are implemented as well as NEMA directing all county governments\nto designate areas of waste disposals and undertake actions to manage the sites\nincluding fencing, manning and weighing of the waste. Currently, Nairobi City\nCounty is responsible for solid waste collection and disposal, but this overall\nmandate which is more decentralized faces a lot of challenges and gaps in\nknowledge, hence the need for technologies to improve the current state in the\ncounty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the world hurtles towards its urban future, the amount of municipal solid waste, an important by-product of an urban lifestyle, is growing faster than the rate of urbanization. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7168,"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":[92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environmental-responsibility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7165","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=7165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}