Solid Waste Management and Recycling

ANNE M. KARANJA, MOSES M. IKIARA, THEO C. DAVIES

CHAPTER 8

REUSE, RECOVERY AND RECYCLING OFURBANINORGANIC

SOLID WASTE IN NAIROBI

8.1. INTRODUCTION

Traditionally, local governments centred their urban solid waste management strate-

gies on effective collection, transportation and disposal services. The primary

objective was to protect and improve public health standards.

This approach came under increasing pressure and scrutiny in the industrialised world

in the 1960s and 1970s, as changing consumption patterns resulted in rising waste

generation rates further increasing the already overstretched waste sinks. The

increasing amounts of waste became socially unacceptable. Therefore, a new perspec-

tive on urban solid waste management was devised in developed countries. This

perspective, entailing the reduction of waste through prevention, reuse, recycling and

energy recovery, seeks to promote a more environmentally sustainable form of solid

waste management. Through recovery, reuse, recycling and composting, waste traders

and recyclers contribute to more sustainable development by promoting cleaner urban

neighbourhoods, financial viability and the reduction of the volumes of waste destined

for disposal, as well as the creation of employment for predominantly poor people

(Baud et al., 2001).

Urban SWM strategies in developing countries are still largely focused on public

health goals (see chapter 6). However, the increase in waste flows is compounding the

already serious problems of SWM in these countries as well. Therefore, developing

countries also need new forms of regulatory and incentive-yielding structures to

encourage the recovery, recycling and reuse of inorganic waste materials, in order to

come to more ‘integrated sustainable waste management systems’. In Kenya, this is

particularly important, as the public sector collection of SW has now almost

completely disappeared (chapter 4).

Urban governance currently stresses the importance of alliances and partnerships

among various actors providing urban services – including SWM – as instruments that

offer greater probability of reaching socio-economically viable systems of service. It

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I. Baud et al. (eds.), Solid Waste Management and Recycling, 161-194.
© 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.