In the 1980s and 1990s, walking the streets of Kenya’s major urban centres was not always a pretty sight. The government garbage collection system had all but collapsed. Private companies stepped in, but they charged high prices. Only the wealthy could afford garbage collection. Less than 30% of solid waste was picked up from the streets.
Things are better today, but it is still far from ideal. Improved collections have led to cleaner streets, but now the garbage is piling up at dumpsites. The sites are filling up quickly as the populations of urban centres increase.
The city of Kisumu in western Kenya is one example of a big urban area struggling to deal with rising levels of solid waste. The European Investment Bank and the German development agency Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) are helping the county government in Kisumu come up with new ways to handle garbage by offering technical assistance worth about €170,000 from the City Climate Finance Gap Fund. This is helping the city study the benefits of building a plant to turn organic waste into a biogas that can be used for cooking and into a fertiliser for farming.
“This project has the potential to change the lives of many residents by providing clean cooking gas and organic fertiliser for farmers,” says Everlyne Otieno, an urban development specialist at the European Investment Bank’s regional office in Nairobi. “This also will have a major impact on women and young girls, because it will make their lives easier.”
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Getting climate projects off the ground
The City Climate Finance Gap Fund is a so-called trust fund managed by the European Investment Bank, with GIZ as a partner. The fund, financed by Germany and Luxembourg, helps cities in developing countries prepare climate-action projects that are in the early stages.
The Kisumu biogas project will improve the city’s solid waste system by collecting organic waste from four farmer’s markets and six informal settlements. The project supports a circular economy, because it turns waste into a new product that helps people’s lives.
There will be many benefits for the county, beginning with lower greenhouse gas emissions from landfill waste. The project, which is still being studied, will collect 16 000 tonnes of waste and keep it out of dumpsites or open areas over a four-year period.
Daniel Odhiambo, who lives in a Kisumu informal settlement and works at one of the restaurants that operates near the Lake Victoria beach, appreciates the environmental and health benefits of the biogas project. Most of the restaurants use firewood or charcoal to cook meals. He says biogas gives people an important and safer alternative to burning wood or charcoal inside homes and businesses. He knows this firsthand, because a pilot biogas plant has been set up to serve restaurants by the lake.
“By using biogas, we are not going to cut down so many trees for charcoal and firewood,” he says. “Also, there are so many people dying due to respiratory diseases caused by smoke inhalation. With biogas, we are saving our health, our money and the environment.”
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Keeping waste out of open spaces
In Kisumu, over 70% of the solid waste is organic. This includes waste generated in farmers’ markets, kitchen waste from residential areas such as informal settlements, and food waste from restaurants and other commercial operations. Only a small portion of this waste is collected and sent to a dumpsite in Kasese, about 40 kilometres away from the Kisumu central business district. Most of the waste ends up in the drainage systems or in open spaces. A lot of this waste can be used to make biogas for cooking, or to make manure and liquid fertilizer for farming. Biogas is produced by crushing waste into small pieces, adding liquid and then heating it in big tanks. The gas develops through a process known as anaerobic digestion.
In the Kisumu area, an estimated 30,000 people will gain access to biogas, reducing households’ needs to burn wood, charcoal or other fuels. This will also reduce deforestation, and the fertiliser made from the project will help farmers’ crop yields. About 20% of Kisumu County’s farmers are expected to use this fertilizer.
While most people in urban areas are able to afford liquid petroleum gas for cooking in their homes, many rural residents or those living in informal settlements rely on firewood or charcoal for cooking.
Having gas in a home helps women and girls a lot. In Kenya, women and girls in rural areas spend up to three hours a day collecting firewood. This does not include the time it takes to prepare the food and clean up afterward. Young girls and women bear the brunt of kitchen work in any Kenyan household.
Problems caused by wood burning in homes
- The World Health Organisation estimates that over three million people die each year from indoor air pollution caused by activities such as wood burning.
- In Kenya, over 23 000 people dying each year from household air pollution caused by cooking with kerosene, firewood, charcoal and crop waste.
- In sub-Saharan Africa, more than 680 000 people die annually from this pollution, accounting for 8.9% of all deaths.
- Across Africa, firewood and charcoal production are responsible for 40% of the global wood harvest and almost half of all forest degradation in sub-Saharan Africa.
The studies financed by the City Climate Finance Gap Fund will also offer recommendations to improve waste collection, which stands at 35% in Kisumu. And the studies will suggest ways to collaborate with private waste collectors and outline a plan to install pipes that send the biogas to the markets and informal settlements.
“This is the type of project that can be repeated across Kenya and other African countries,” says Otieno, the urban development specialist. “And it ticks a lot of boxes — it helps people, the climate and the environment.
