African Revolution; Waste as a Resource

26^th June 2012

African Revolution; Waste as a Resource

I was in a meeting with two progressive young men today- Mr. James Ogongo and Mr. Phillip Tinega and a thought process struck me; can we use some Solid Waste as raw materials for Road Construction? James has a Masters in Environmental Studies and Community Affairs while Phillip is a Bachelor of Commerce graduate.

What has been bothering some of us for a long time is the inertia we generate towards active thinking.

In Europe, they went through an Industrial Revolution that changed Europe and her thinking. Man looked at things and asked the hard questions. The results was an aggressive change over that led to a series of inventions.

We are today a lucky people courtesy of that great Transformation that took place in Europe in the 18th Century.

Can Waste as a Resource be the beginning of an African Revolution? 

A walk down several of our Towns and Cities takes one through sights that are very uncomfortable. Mounds and mounds of garbage are deposited by the road-sides, by the next corner, by the Fly-Overs, by our markets, by our schools, by our Fields and literally even in the middle of where we are living.

In Nairobi, a population of almost 4 million people is generating 2,400 tonnes of waste per day, a situation that must be addressed by the almost 1,000 employees in the Department of Environment spread across 74 Wards. This boils down to about 3 employees on the cleansing sections per Ward. Definitely these people cannot keep Nairobi clean.

It must call for a thinking that must not be consistent with how we do our things on routine. The managers at the Department of Environment across our Towns must be pro-active and develop mechanisms through which Waste can be the next frontier as a Resource for Growth. Often times we are told of how waste is wealth and it ends there. No practical actions are engineered to really make us realize that waste is actually wealth.

As a raw material resource, our Road Engineers should look at how they can compact waste as a base for Road Constructions. This will reduce the amounts of waste we have across our Towns as it will form a solid foundation upon which our Roads will be built.

Then we have the several forms of waste that can be used as compost manure. A walk down several of our markets will reveal to you the amount of raw waste we have that we only need to transport to our farms. In this context, we do not need the chemical fertilizers that in most cases tend to affect our yields as well as our lives. Our waste managers are doing practically nothing to effect this simple solution to power our agricultural productions and minimize costs of farm inputs.

Waste can power our own form of a Revolution, and in so doing, help build our Roads, help power our Agriculture, and help make our Towns Clean. Waste can even light our homes!

This is a thought process that must be developed, and it is with this in mind that in partnership with the Public Service Transformation Department, the National Environment Management Authority, the City Council of Nairobi, the Provincial Administration, and other Friends of the Environment, we will be hosting a Consultative Forum on Waste Management at the Charter Hall at City Hall on the 11th July 2012 as from 9.00am to help us look at how best we can use our waste and pilot the process of Separation of Waste at Source from 1st August 2012 with a Select Sample in Nairobi.

If you can add value to this thinking, you are invited to join with us on the 11th July 2012 at Charter Hall. We should all be seated by 8.45am and ready for serious action from immediately 9.00am when Prayers will be offered.

Odhiambo T Oketch,

Executive Director,

The Clean Kenya Campaign-TCKC

Tel; 0724 365 557

Blogspot; http://kcdnkomarockswatch.blogspot.com

The Clean Kenya Campaign- Website; www.kcdnkenya.org

Zetech College joins in cleaning Nairobi

Friends,
The many campuses of Zetech College in Nairobi today teamed with the City Council of Nairobi to help clean several streets within the Central Business District.
Odhiambo T Oketch in Green addressing Zetech College Students before flagging off the Clean-up Exercise this moring at the Bomb Blast in Nairobi. The photo was taken today the 23rd June 2012
The event was flagged off by Odhiambo T Oketch of The Clean Kenya Campaign-TCKC at the Bomb Blast site. He was flanked by Mr. Gabriel Omondi- an Assistant Director of Environment at the City Council of Nairobi, Mr. Francis Mutulu- Corporate Communications Officer at Zetech College, Mr. Dan Miheso of City Council of Nairobi and Mr. Otieno Sungu- the Programmes Manager at The Clean Kenya Campaign.
This is a very noble exercise and on behalf of The Clean Kenya Campaign-TCKC, I want to sincerely thank the Management, Staff and Student fraternity at Zetech Colleges for foregoing their morning classes for today and joining with us in making our Streets Clean.
Zetech College students moving to action
300 students from 5 Campuses of Zetech Colleges took part in this exercise that targeted Moi Avenue, Haile Sellassie Avenue, Harambee Avenue, River Road and Tom Mboya Street.
As we look forward to working with more Colleges in making our Country Clean, we want to invite as many more Colleges to join with us on the 21st July 2012 when we will engage in Operation Reclaim Nairobi from Waste.

Ms Claire Muchiri- 2nd Runners Up Miss Zetech 2011-2012 in action along Haile Sellassie Avenue with her colleagues.

Nairobi generates a lot of waste and we must as a people decide how we want to manage this waste. Do we want to keep piling it up by the road sides and blame the Councils for lethargy, or, do we want to work with the Councils and other relevant State Agencies in managing our waste produce.
Again, as we work towards a Clean Country, let all of us be Ambassadors for a Clean Environment. A Clean Kenya will NEVER happen by itself. It will be made to be what we want.
Mr. Antony Ashioya- Mr. Zetech College in action along Haramee Avenue with his colleagues
It is with this in mind that The Clean Kenya Campaign-TCKC, working in partnership with the Public Service Transformation Department, the National Environment Management Authority, the City Council of Nairobi and the Provincial Administration in Nairobi will be hosting a Consultative Forum on Waste Management on the 11th July 2012 at the City Hall with invited Partners in a process that will lead to Operation Reclaim Nairobi from Waste on the 21st July 2012.

Odhiambo T Oketch
Executive Director,
The Clean Kenya Campaign-TCKC
Tel; 0724 365 557
Blogspot; http://kcdnkomarockswatch.blogspot.com

The Clean Kenya Campaign- Website; www.kcdnkenya.org

Rio+20- The Issues 20 years ago

In his article appearing in the Daily Nation of today- the 21st Day of June 2012, Prof Jeffrey D Sachs gives a scathing analysis of the paralysis on decision making and action as the embodiments of conferencing.
He quotes the authoritative Scientific Nature Magazine as having summed up the implementation of the 1st Rio Conferencing on the 3 Treaties by giving the following grades;

1. Climate Change- F meaning, Fail
2. Biological Diversity- F meaning Fail
3. Combating Desertification- F meaning Fail.

Kenyans join in a Clean-up Campaign during the World Environment Day celebrations on 5th June 2012
Now, this is real damning, and yet, 20 years down the line, having achieved Zero with the first Rio Conference, travelers and journeymen are once again gathered at Rio to talk about what they talked about 20 years ago.
In his words, Prof Sachs says- Rio has failed to give humanity the language to discuss our own survival. And I absolutely agree with him.
You will all remember that Prof Sachs was the architect of the failed Structural Adjustment Programmes that were then touted as the panacea to our survival in the Third World. The SAPs brought with it poverty of unmitigated proportion to a people who had food in abundance before. We compromised our going to the gardens and tilling our lands for sustainable food outputs just because somebody came along with some experiments in the form of SAPs. And our Government forsook the people and embraced such an experiment.
Before the SAPs were introduced, going to school was a big relief to parents. School fee was only Kshs 20.00 per Term and this was paid at the Chiefs Camp. Once you paid this, you were assured of Text Books in Class and you would be given Exercise Books for Free.
But when SAPs were introduced, journeymen stepped in. Our Education Carriculum was defecated upon and the end result in the mass confusion we still have upto now. Pupils even at Class One are being instructed with books that one might be mistaken are for Graduate Class. I shudder with shame when I take my small Class 2 daughter to school. She has a huge School Bag full of books, yet, when I was in Class Two, I only used to have a Slate.
SAPs messed our Health Institutions and everyone in Kenya is paying dearly for this failed experiment. We used to have Doctors and medicine in our Hospitals before and medication was fairly free. But with the advent of SAPs, we introduced cost sharing and with cost sharing, Doctors started also sharing the little the Government provided with their Private Clinics. The end result is the mess we have found ourselves saddled in.
In all, when Prof Jeffrey D Sachs acknowledges that something is a failure, we must all sit upright and listen, for the man himself has been the epitome of failure for the Third World. he is a Professor of Economics, and I want to believe that SAPs must have been his dissertation. Whoever supervised this works for him enjoins him in condemning the same humanity to unmitigated suffering.
This is why even as I agree with his conclusions, I find in him a paradox of a human being. He concludes thus; Just as the Millenium Development Goals opened our eyes to extreme poverty and promoted unprecedented global action to fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the SDGs- meaning Structural Development Goals- can open the eyes of todays youth to climate change, biodiversity loss and the disaster of desertification.
We have known Countries such as Israel who are not so conference savvy, yet, they have managed to make use of their deserts to full agricultural potentials.
No one will Clean Kenya for us. It must be our responsibility.


Odhiambo T Oketch,
Executive Director,
The Clean Kenya Campaign- TCKC
Tel; 0724 365 557,
Blogspot; http://kcdnkomarockswatch.blogspot.com

The Clean Kenya Campaign; Website-www.kcdnkenya.org

Rio+20

Friends,
Friends of nature, or rather, people who talk about nature and environment are meeting at Rio De Janeiro in an environmental conference that has been dubbed Rio+20.
20 years ago, the World met at Rio and looked at several issues that inform the management of our environment. Several issues were discussed, as they will do from tomorrow, and sadly, 20 years down the line, we have nothing to be proud of since then.
Instead, the World had continued to suffer environmental issues.
The status of the World has degenerated. Global warming has increased. The Ozone Layer is being depleted. The Forest Cover is going down across the world. And man has become the biggest threat to our eco-system. Instead of solving our problems, we have come up with things like Carbon Trading and Green Economy.
A basic thing that need very little intervention; Cleaning our neighbourhoods- this was on the 5th June 2012 during the World Environment Day in Nairobi where the Provincial Director of Environment- standing in Reddish shirt, led volunteers in cleaning Landhies Road.
Instead of addressing our environmental issues, we have opted for the softer options; coining words and phrases that are vacuous.
Our Towns are getting messier and dirtier and our waters are getting more polluted. The air we breath is becoming thin and congested, yet, we are always in conferences discussing these issues.
Our Towns are getting more dustier and yet, these are things we can effectively mitigate without resorting to words and phrases that are only at best left at those conferences.
Just recently, the World converged in Durban in South Africa, still, they were talking about the same same things. Ask anybody what Durban achieved and you will be shocked; nothing. Words and only words.
I am tempted to ask; for how long will we be talking and conferencing? This is a tough question, because, we have many professionals whose forte is to talk and give more talk. They never implement. We get mountains and mountains of lectures on Nature and Environment, and it stops at that.
Take the example of having a Clean Neighbourhood; Do we really need lectures and conferences on having our Towns Clean? We only need to implement. What if we took the moneys earmarked for these kind of conferences and decided to strengthen our implementation agencies?
We will be able to buy many tracks to cart away our garbage. The cost of such conferencing will strengthen our Councils across Kenya and we will employ more personnel to police our Environmental By-laws. We will buy more Skip Loaders, more tractors, more working implements for the enforcing teams, and the teams will be motivated.
But instead, we have chosen the more easier roots; conferencing.
40 years ago, the United Nations Environment Programme was born as a Programme of the UN. This means, it could not get secure programmed and sustained funding to address the Environmental concerns of the World. For 40 years, there have been talks about moving the Unep from Nairobi, about upgrading the Unep, about strengthening her status and about all conceivable issues you may imagine.
For 40 years, the world and her leaders have just been talking.
I want to believe, that as these people converge at Rio in what they are calling Rio+20, solutions will come forth and action will follow.
It will be our wish at The Clean Kenya Campaign- TCKC for Unep to be made a Specialized UN Agency to deal conclusively with matters Environment. A strengthened, upgraded and emboldened Unep will be secure, will have a strong membership that will secure her funding and will work for a sustainable environmental policies across the world.
Her membership at the Security Council of the UN General Assembly will be strong and she will have a voice.
Our Leaders often travel the World and I want them to look at us in the eye and tell us if those Towns they visit are as dirty as our Towns? Do those other Towns have mounds of garbage everywhere as our Towns do? Do those Towns have no Water as our Towns do, yet, water is a key necessity to nature.
Do those Towns have pot-holed roads like we do here?
Let Rio+20 be the last of these talking shops. The world is experiencing environmental problems of unmitigated proportions yet, we who have solutions to these issues are only engaged in talking.
Let Rio+20 be the beginning of a structured engagement to re-foresting the world.
Let Rio+20 be the beginning of a pragmatic approach to solving the issue of Solid Waste Management across our Towns.
Let Rio+20 be the beginning of a strengthened Unep, a Unep with the financial ability and power to engage.
Let Rio+20 be the last of these talking shops where people who know the same things gather to share what they all know.
No one will Clean Kenya for us. It must be our responsibility.


Odhiambo T Oketch,
Executive Director,
The Clean Kenya Campaign- TCKC
Tel; 0724 365 557,
Blogspot; http://kcdnkomarockswatch.blogspot.com

The Clean Kenya Campaign; Website-www.kcdnkenya.org