26th 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
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