Waste solutions
Andries Tatane Clean-up campaign, Sebokeng
Divert waste with USE-IT
Convert Waste into Energy
The Community Cooker project in Kibera converts rubbish into energy using a high-temperature industrial cooker. Workers sort waste, separating out recyclable materials, and incinerating the rest. The cooker is housed in a communal publicly accessible facility. It uses natural airflow, discarded sump oil, and water to heat to temperatures of more than 800 degrees Celsius. Heat from the cooker can be used to boil water, brew tea, cook traditional foods, and bake cakes, among many other purposes. Residents exchange waste for tokens that buy them time to use the cooker, either as a stove, to heat/purify water, or even to bathe.
Diverting waste from landfills
A woman-led social impact venture is helping Nairobi divert waste from landfill through the manufacture of plastic-based building materials.
Gjenge Makers Ltd. is a social enterprise that uses plastics to develop alternative and more affordable building materials. Among these products are ‘pavers’. This is a type of exterior flooring, used to create durable pavements that are usually made from cement and brick. The business employs young people, creating work while safeguarding the planet.
Give discarded plastic a new purpose
The Earthly Touch Foundation is creating social and economic value out of plastic waste, while at the same time taking single-use plastic and other waste off the streets and away from landfill by turning them into eco-bricks. These eco-bricks are used to build classrooms, which are cool in summer and warm in winter.
Incentivising recycling with Packa-ching
Buy-Back Centres in Diepsloot
Diepsloot is not only illustrative of the main systemic causes of littering and dumping (e.g. limited waste removal in informal areas, inadequate waste removal in formal areas, unreliable and distant municipal services, limited bins in public areas) but also demonstrates some promising solutions and innovations. An observation of the dumpsites around Diepsloot reveals that these dumps are also a kind of community resource, allowing some to gain a livelihood, while others find items they need which have been discarded by other people. As is the case across the country, Diepsloot has many waste reclaimers who travel between the various dumpsites looking for electronics, metal, tin, paper, cardboard, and certain recyclable kinds of plastic. These waste reclaimers make a living off the dumps, while other residents operate informal buy-back centres which buy recyclables off reclaimers and then transport these in bulk to formal buy-back centres every so often.
Giving communities what they need
Helping communities to separate their waste
Supporting reclaimers
The ReTrade Project offers community waste reclaimers an opportunity to trade their recyclables for credit, which they can then spend at the Trade Store on food, clothing, toiletries and other essentials. Contributors to the store include local businesses, which means that purchases to stock the store also stimulate the local economy. Collected recyclables are sold to a local recycling company with all profits reinvested in stock for the store. In addition to the Trade Store, ReTrade are involved in corporate responsibility initiatives, the co-creation of children’s instruments from waste.