The Environmental Management and Coordination
Act (EMCA) of 1999 gives rights and confers duties to individuals to safeguard
and enhance the environment. It guarantees every Kenyan a clean and healthy
environment. These provisions also envisage protection of the environment for
the benefit of the present and future generations as also envisioned in Kenyan Vision 2030 and the constitution
2010.
However, more often than not, urban dwellers have to make do
with living amid solid wastes despite the health risks. Here is where slums and streets are littered
with solid wastes and bus parks and ocean/lake shores serve as dumpsites. It is
common to come across slum children playing with plastic bags full of feaces
that had been thrown away the previous night.
Kenya continues to face a
myriad of challenges regarding solid waste management. Budgetary deficiencies,
insufficient public awareness, poor enforcement of outdated legislations, less
solid waste research and lack of skilled staff in waste management are making
us stare in the face of a solid waste management time bomb. Collection systems are inefficient and
disposal systems are not environmentally friendly. 30 to 40 per cent of all
solid waste generated in urban areas is uncollected and less than 50 per cent
of the population is served (Otieno, 2010). He states that up to 80 per cent of
collection transport is out of service or in need of repair and argues that if
the issue of sustainable solid waste management in Kenya is not considered
urgently, all the towns in Kenya will be engulfed in waste. The politics of
relocating the Dandora dumpsite, inspite of the obvious environmental health
risks it predisposes us to, for instance, has been here with us for decades. Again,
one would wonder, where will this dumpsite be rellocated with the current
approaches? That remains another discussion for another day!
Nairobi, the
most affected by the solid waste menace, produces approximately 3200 tonnes of
solid wastes daily. This is enough for people who would want to draw
recyclables, instead of resorting to importation as in the case last week of
the 20 tonnes from Britain. But this, ashamedly, might just be a tip of the iceberg. Many more are getting in. But one would ask, why bother with the local
content while we can not tell the exact amounts of types of solid wastes we
produce daily as a nation?
This calls
for the need for sustainable, economically and ecologically practical solutions to
integrated solid waste management. These simple and well known three bottom-line
prerequisites need to guide us in the development of a solid waste management
strategy that would protect our land and turn the solid waste management sector
into a viable economy. This would call for the revision of the EMCA Act to be
realistic with the changed face of the solid wastes sectors such as a viably
inclusive private-public partnership in the major towns. This would facilitate
a fruitful implementation of NEMA’s Waste Management Regulations 2006 which are
yet to yield convincing fruits. It would also guide county governments on waste
management. If this is not happening alongside other sector alignments, then
where are headed to?
The writer is a Public Health Officer practicing in Nairobi(Chrispory.juma@gmail.com)
