Environmental Management and Income Generation
in Low-Income Areas:
A Case Study of Nairobi, Kenya
by
Kim Peters
in association with
Mazingira Institute
Nairobi, Keny
March 1998
Community-Based Waste Management for Environmental Management and Income Generation in Low-Income Areas: A Case Study of Nairobi, Kenya
Table of Contents
Foreword
Summary
Chapter One: Nairobi's Urban Environment
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Geographical Context of the Project
1.3 Demographic, Social and Economic Context
1.4 Local Government in Nairobi and the Waste Management Situation
2.1 Introduction
2.2 City-wide Community Efforts
Local NGOs Promoting Composting
Figure 2.1 Greater Nairobi Area: Locations of Informal Settlements and Composting Groups
2.4 Community-Based Organizations Involved in Composting
Figure 2.2 Kibera ñ Location of Urban Agriculture Plots
Figure 2.3 Kitui-Pumwani ñ Location of kinyago Village Urban Agriculture Plots
2.5 Environmental Benefits of Composting
2.6 Limitations of Composting as a Waste Management Strategy
2.7 Composting and Rural-Urban Linkages
Chapter Three: Community Development through Composting
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Amounts and Relative Importance of Income Generated
3.3 Constraints on Income Generation
3.4 Gender and Development Issues in Composting
3.5 Improving the Sustainability of Composting Projects
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Summary of the Environmental, Income and Community Development Impacts of the Composting Projects
4.3 Appropriate Roles for Actors in the Waste Management Sector
4.4 The Research Agenda on Waste Management in East Africa
Appendix I: Photographic Essay of Community Waste Management in Nairobi
Bibliography
Foreword
Research for this case was originally carried out in Nairobi in 1994 and 1995, and was funded by the Canadian International Development Agency.
The research was carried out by Kim Peters with the assistance of the Mazingira Institute, the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University, Toronto, Canada, the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Nairobi, the Undugu Society of Kenya, the Foundation for Sustainable Development in Africa, and the Uvumbuzi Club of Nairobi.
I would also like to acknowledge the in-kind support provided by the Earth Council in preparing this version of the case study.
Kim Peters
Toronto, Canada
March 1998
Community-Based Waste Management for Environmental Management and Income Generation in Low-Income Areas: A Case Study of Nairobi, Kenya
Summary:
This study focuses on the problems and opportunities of community-based waste management in Nairobi, Kenya. Within several of the city's informal settlements, women's groups have started composting organic wastes as means of improving community environmental conditions and generating income through the sale of the compost. The central purpose of the study is to assess the success of these composting projects in meeting their environmental and community development goals. A complementary purpose of the study is to add to the limited amount of research on waste in East Africa.
The participatory research techniques employed in this study revealed that significant environmental improvements have been achieved through composting, including improved health, urban agriculture opportunities, better drainage and access within the communities, and the potential to address rural-urban imbalances in resource flows. The composting projects have, to date, been less successful in their goal of generating income. However, the research revealed that other aspects of community development are equally, if not more important, than income generation.
In terms of appropriate roles for NGOs, CBOs and local authorities, the research provides evidence that communities are more than willing to provide for themselves urban service like waste management when local authorities are unable to do so. In providing advice, training, and credit to these organizations, NGOs have an important role to play. The resources of local authorities are therefore best employed in regulating, coordinating and advising CBO and NGO efforts in the provision of urban services like waste management.
This research has also added to the limited information on waste management in East Africa, especially with regard to issues of gender, urban agriculture, and the most appropriate roles for all actors in the waste management sector.
Nairobiís Urban Environment
1.1 Introduction
One of the most important outputs of the Earth Summit (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development) in 1992 was Agenda 21:
an action plan for the 1990s and well into the twenty-first century, elaborating strategies and integrated programme measures to halt and reverse the effects of environmental degradation and to promote environmentally sound and sustainable development in all countries (UNCED, 1992).
Agenda 21 included an action plan for cities wishing to enhance urban sustainability. These recommendations included institutionalizing a participatory approach and improving the urban environment by promoting social organization and environmental awareness. The need to promote actively, to strengthen and expand waste re-use and recycling systems was also recognized in Agenda 21. The consensus on sustainable development which emerged from the Earth Summit now must be transformed into action by engaging in a period of decentralized experimentation (Brugmann, 1994: 129).
Sub-Saharan Africa is one region where this experimentation is actively occurring now, especially after the 1980s economic crisis which resulted in increased hardship for most of the regionís poor. The serious problems which confront African cities as a result of the 1980s' economic crisis have been well documented (Stren and White, 1989). One enduring consequence is the inability of African governments to sustain adequate levels of urban services. As continuing economic hardship forces a growing number of migrants to urban areas in search of employment, an even greater strain is placed on urban pressure points like solid waste management. Both financially and physically, a city may be unable to provide waste collection, especially to the urban poor occupying peri-urban or other geographically inaccessible areas. The urban poor are left to contend with waste disposal on their own. The lack of support given to the urban poor in this area has serious consequences on their health and on the urban environment. Thus, in cities of the developing world, the management of solid wastes is now an issue of vital importance to urban sustainability.
As urban environmental problems worsen in developing countries, non-conventional approaches to urban pressure points like waste management will have to be adopted. The recycling of solid and organic waste is one approach which has positive ramifications in creating informal employment and offering an environmentally sound solution to waste management problems. While there is considerable documentation on innovative community-level waste management schemes in Asian and Latin American cities, little research has been done on the importance of, and potential for, waste re-use in African cities. As a city with critical waste management problems and a burgeoning informal sector, Nairobi possesses both the need and potential for an innovative approach to its waste problems.
One alternative waste management technique is the urban poor's re-use of refuse. Waste recycling is often undertaken as a survival strategy when the urban poor are unable to obtain formal employment, and when non-waste resources are scarce or unaffordable. Waste re-use also plays a role in improving the urban physical environment. By reducing the total amount of solid waste headed for the landfill (or left lying to rot in the streets), recycling and composting are land-saving and pollution-reducing strategies. Waste re-use also plays a valuable resource conserving role: by recycling materials, further exploitation of scarce natural resources is minimized, thus containing the spreading ecological footprint of the city. Despite these environmentally and socially beneficial aspects of waste recycling, it is not without its negative impacts, which include exploitation by waste buyers and poor health and living conditions for the urban poor who deal in waste picking (Furedy, 1992).
This study started as an investigation of community efforts at environmental management, income generation, and community empowerment through waste management in Nairobi, Kenya. Several community groups in Nairobi's low-income areas were found to be undertaking composting as an income generating and environmental management strategy. Other types of community waste management also exist in Nairobi: these will also be discussed briefly.
Waste management is identified as one of Nairobi's key environmental issues and is therefore the focus of this study. Local residents fondly recall the days when Nairobi was a clean, efficient city - the pride of Africa. Researchers in Kenya and abroad discuss the externalities of structural adjustment - how the ability of local authorities to deliver services to urban residents has been hindered by deficit reduction, civil service streamlining, etc. Local residents and researchers alike show concern for the impact that the lack of adequate waste management has on low-income urban residents. Both local residents and researchers are also looking for solutions which not only mitigate the environmental problems of waste, but also enhance community development efforts by generating income, sharing information and labour, and uniting community members in collective action.
To what extent have solutions along these lines been applied in Nairobi? How are they being carried out? Are they successful? What are the limitations and the future potential? These questions will be addressed with the intention of adding to the body of literature on urban problems in East Africa, and of documenting local initiatives which, because of their small scale and informal nature, are often overlooked in the struggle to achieve global sustainability.
1.2 Geographical Context of the Project
Today, Nairobi's two main images stand in marked contrast to one another. The first is of a well-planned garden city in which salubrious suburbs, the preservation of open space, and the presence of wide, landscaped boulevards dominate the cityís physical layout. Equally visible nowadays is what Hake (1977) calls the "self-help city": it includes make-shift housing, roadside jua kali shops and industries, and small, cultivated plots along undeveloped or under-utilized urban land. Today, the dividing lines between Nairobi the garden city and Nairobi the self-help city are less distinct as informal housing and small-scale business activities are attracted to the large number of open areas in the cityís upper income areas. Under-investment in urban infrastructure is also resulting in the decay of many of Nairobi's modern "amenities". However, the colonial pattern of development still persists in that the majority of Africans live in high-density and/or informal housing to the east of the CBD while high-income groups, including Asians, Europeans, and the African nouveau-elite live to the west and northwest of the CBD.
The informal housing settlements of Nairobi are home to over half of the city's population, now estimated to be about 1.8 million (Lamba, 1994: 168). The density of informal settlement is reflected in the amount of land they occupy: one third of Nairobi's population lives on only five percent of the city's land (Ibid.). The most common housing situation for residents of informal settlements is renting, not ownership. Illegal landlords (who may or may not live in the slums themselves) collect rent from illegal tenants (Lamba, 1994; Lee-Smith, 1990). In some cases, beds within houses are sublet for a certain number of hours each day (Ibid.) Land allocation decisions are made through local chiefs and village elders, rather than through recognized municipal authorities. The land on which informal settlements are constructed is hazardous because of steep slopes, flooding, or proximity to noxious industry. Poverty, the insecurity of housing tenure, and the desire to invest in rural homes limit incentives to improve urban housing conditions. The illegal status and inaccessible location of these settlements make local authorities reluctant to provide them with urban services.
The lack of well paying formal sector employment opportunities (due to slow economic growth, SAPs and the accelerated pace of urbanization) has resulted in a growing jua kali (i.e., informal) sector in Nairobi. This sector has become an important alternative to employment in the formal sector and is estimated to employ approximately one half of the urban labour force, contributing twenty to thirty percent of total urban income (Ondiege, 1990:6). For 1981-84, the growth rate of the informal sector (8.1%) was estimated to be twice that of the modern sector (4.1%) (Ibid.). The sector caters for low-income consumers with the affordable goods and services the sector provides. Informal activities in Nairobi include street vendors, maize roasters, shoe shiners, auto-repairers, cart pullers, kiosk owners, street barbers, water vendors, building contractors, charcoal sellers and furniture makers (Bubba and Lamba, 1991).
Many of Nairobi's poor engage in waste picking as a means of income generation. Scavengers are estimated to collect 20 tonnes of the approximately 800 to 1000 tonnes generated daily in Nairobi (Syagga, 1992: 34).
The degree of scavenging is so intensive at the main Dandora waste disposal site such that a visit to the site during the day appears as if the scavengers are people working in a rice field (Mwaura, 1991: 105).
Mwaura's 1991 study of scavengers found that the majority were single men averaging about 27 years of age. They were usually long-term residents of Nairobi; it is not a job for recent migrants because detailed information as to where to find the garbage is needed and one must have linkages to the market to enable one to sell (Ibid., 88-100). The most popular items scavenged include paper, scrap metal, and bottles in that order of preference. Other materials identified included bones and plastics (Odegi-Awuondo, 1994: 49). Scavengers sell daily collections to middlemen who in turn sell it to industries.
Organic wastes are not usually scavenged by waste pickers, but are important to street children who often pick through bins to find their next meal. Some of the larger restaurants and hotels also sell their scraps to farmers to be used as pig feed (Personal communication, Sarova Hotels). Organic wastes are also important to the urban agriculture sector as all sorts of livestock, including goats, chickens and the occasional cow, feed on top of waste heaps.
Urban agriculture exists throughout the city on both private and public land. The growing of crops in urban areas is an important survival strategy for the urban poor (especially for those without rural land holdings) as it reduces the amount of income expended on food (Kettel et al., 1995). Freeman (1991) estimated that one-third of urban households in Nairobi grew crops. A study on urban agriculture by the Mazingira Institute (1987) estimates that three quarters of urban farmers consumed all that they produced.
The legal status of urban agriculture remains unclear. While harassment of urban farmers by legal authorities largely has ceased, threats are still made that maize plots along road reserves will be cleared because they limit driver visibility and conceal criminals. The potential of urban agriculture is limited by these threats along with crop theft and vandalism. While its importance as a survival strategy for the urban poor is evident, its viability as a development solution has been challenged: "...if it is as backward and trapped in vicious circles of poverty as rural agriculture, it is no answer to our search for sustainable development" (Bibangambah, 1992: 306).
1.3 Demographic, Social and Economic Context
In the 1980s, the austerity measures associated with SAPs and a decline in national economic growth had the effect of worsening urban poverty, but perceived higher incomes in urban areas and the removal of agricultural subsidies as part of SAPs have also led to an increase in rural-urban migration in the 1980s (whereas the 1970s had seen a decline in the rate of migration). This rapid urban growth, combined with SAP austerities, causes strain on existing facilities in urban areas. The under-investment in services has been especially difficult on women who are responsible for the provision of collective needs.
Traditionally it was men who migrated to urban areas, leaving women and children in rural areas where food and education were cheaper and labour was needed to care for the family shamba. However, an increasing number of women are migrating to urban areas for a number of reasons: in order to improve their position in the socio-economic system of stratification which limits their ability to participate fully in the rural opportunity system; in order to escape traditionally ascribed status, from obedience to male relatives, from lives of hard physical labour, from customary sanctions against unmarried mothers; and to look for husbands because few men remain in rural areas (House-Midamba 1991:53-54). While women lose the security of traditional rural life, they clearly gain a sense of personal freedom, empowerment, and independence from life in the city. Brown (1994: 24) estimates that over half of the population in Nairobiís informal settlements live in female-headed, single parent households.
In terms of employment opportunities, men have more access to formal sector jobs because they tend to be more highly educated and do not have the child care responsibilities of women. Even in the informal sector, men have more opportunities for the same reasons as above, but they also have better access to credit than women. Women's inability to secure capital and acquire access to credit (because they have been systematically excluded from land ownership which would provide them with collateral) exerts severe and negative repercussions on Kenyan women's commercial activities.
Three-quarters of all Kenyan women engaged in small-scale urban enterprises are concentrated in the area of wholesale and retail trade (House-Midamba, 1995: 82). Within this group of women traders, a large majority of them are vegetable hawkers. This role is derived not only from the role of women as vegetable traders in traditional Kikuyu society, but also from the flexibility that vegetable hawking allows them: it requires almost no capital investment; their place of business and hours of operation are variable; and they can care for children at the same time as working (Ibid.). Other forms of hawking by women include charcoal selling, maize beer-brewing, kiosk operating, selling cooked food, dressmaking, hairdressing and prostitution (Ibid.: 90).
The cutbacks in urban infrastructure investment and social services as a result of SAPs have a disproportionate impact on women. They are traditionally responsible for providing items of collective consumption, such as water and domestic energy, normally provided through infrastructural services (Lee-Smith and Stren, 1991: 30). Women in urban areas are burdened with providing these services, in addition to child care and income generating responsibilities. Women's organizations in Kenya play a vital role in the process of economic development (by providing access to credit, education, etc.) and in lobbying the government for improved conditions for women (House-Midamba, 1995: 92).
1.4 Local Government in Nairobi and the Waste Management Situation
Responsibility for the provision of most urban services is allocated to the level of local government as a result of the British colonial heritage of the country. Because the westernized approach to service provision is failing, alternatives must be explored. In order to identify appropriate alternatives, the reasons for the failure of urban service provision must be established.
Administration of urban areas in Kenya is the responsibility of local authorities and the Ministry of Local Government. In 1991, there were 109 local authorities in Kenya. These are divided into four categories: 20 municipalities (including Nairobi); 22 town councils; 39 county councils; and 28 urban councils (Bubba and Lamba, 1991: 40). Services provided by municipal governments in large urban areas include: primary education, health services, road construction and maintenance, water supply, sewerage, housing, solid waste management, drainage, markets, and social services.
The problems plaguing the management of Nairobi's urban services can be traced to both local and central levels of government. Staff at both levels suffer from a lack of decision-making authority, a lack of experience, a lack of accountability and heavy volumes of work due to under-staffing (Smoke, 1994: 128). There is also a lack of inter-local government cooperation in projects where a coordination in planning and construction of infrastructure projects would result in significant cost savings (Ibid., 124). Smoke also identifies several financial problems that plague local authorities: out-dated land rates, neglect in the collection of taxes, dishonesty of revenue collectors, inadequate enforcement authority, political pressure on officers to be less aggressive in revenue collection, and payment delinquency on the part of many government agencies and parastatals. Moreover, user fees for some urban services may be heavily subsidized to the point that the service is operated at a net loss (Bubba and Lamba, 1991: 41).
These problems are exacerbated by political difficulties at the city level. Councillors are more concerned with the private accumulation of wealth than with the efficient management of urban services (Bubba and Lamba, 1991: 42). There are also poor relations between the politicians and chief officers. The Nairobi City Council (NCC) has been at the centre of these controversies. In 1983, the City Council was dismissed because of gross mismanagement and failure to provide urban services. In its place, a commission was set up to run the city. Between 1983 and 1991, there were five different chairpersons and three different commissions: each was dissolved because of its inability to serve City Hall or to provide residents with services (Ibid., 46-47).
These organizational, fiscal and political problems faced by central and local government in Kenya have resulted in an inability to cope with the staggering rates of population growth and rural to urban migration. There is excessive strain on existing facilities and under-investment in new ones. Education, health facilities, and urban services (including waste management) are especially affected.
Uncollected solid waste is one of Nairobi's most visible environmental problems:
The municipal service which seems to fail most strikingly is garbage collection and disposal because it causes littering and untidiness which has an immediate adverse psychological impact. The lack of adequate garbage disposal in an area often results in negative attitudes that contribute to a general deterioration of community development and cohesion (Mwaura, 1991: 35).
One half of the solid waste generated in Nairobi consists of organic matter. Toxic materials are estimated to be 0.2 percent of the total. For households alone, it is estimated that three-quarters of the waste is organic material (Syagga, 1992: 28-29). Estimates for the daily generation of solid waste for the city as a whole range from 800 tonnes (Syagga 1992) to 1000 tonnes (Personal communication, NCC Cleansing Section). Daily disposal capacity of the NCC is about 400 tonnes: less than fifty percent. The NCC estimates that private companies are disposing about 50 tonnes a month. Waste collection services are provided only sporadically to low-income areas because of poor accessibility and very high waste generation which cannot be handled with available vehicles and equipment. Other problems encountered by the NCC Cleansing Section include inadequate financing, a lack of recognition of the importance of satisfactory and effective waste management by the policy makers, and inadequate training of managers (Personal communication, NCC Cleansing Section).
Privatization as an alternative to publicly provided waste management has been explored for developing countries. Bartone et al. (1991) conclude that the private sector can operate more efficiently than the public sector in providing municipal solid waste services, while Cointreau-Levine (1994) concludes that it is a possible opportunity, not a panacea, for improving solid waste management in developing countries. For example, in Nairobi, two formal sector companies provide private waste collection services. However, only upper-income residents and businesses are able to afford the monthly fee. Neither company ventures into the informal settlements since they are unable to collect fees from residents. The NCC has no official policy towards the privatization of waste collection, nor do they provide any assistance to private companies to enable them to operate in informal settlements (Personal communication, NCC Cleansing Section).
The NCC also lacks a policy on waste reduction at the source, and on involving community groups in waste management (though it does participate in several notable efforts). Cleansing Section officials recognize the need to reduce waste at its source, to conduct mass media campaigns, and to develop clear and enforceable policies and bylaws promoting waste reduction, recycling, and community participation, but their is a lack of political will to do so (Personal communication, NCC Cleansing Section). Because of poor financing and management, senior managers in the NCC Cleansing Section envision their future role as one of coordinating all actors in the waste management sector, including their own limited resources, the private sector, and the community sector.
Redressing the Urban Service Imbalance: The Role of the Community Sector in Waste and Environmental Management
2.1 Introduction
The community sector needs to be included in waste management efforts as both private and public sector actors are unable to provide waste services to low-income areas of the city. Syagga (1992) supports the involvement of the community sector as an effective way of increasing access of the poor to urban services, including waste management. In Nairobi, organizations in the community sector, such as charitable organizations, ethnic associations, professional "support" NGOs, welfare societies, village committees, self-help groups, and security committees are already providing many of these services:
... a recent survey of eighty NGOs in Nairobi shows that support NGOs provide a wide range of services. Their emphasis is on education (they provide nine per cent of all primary education and twenty-seven per cent of all secondary education in the city) followed by health and welfare. Some NGOs also provide housing, while a few provided recreation, water waste disposal, and environmental conservation services (Lee-Smith & Stren, 1991: 34).
The involvement of grassroots NGOs and CBOs has been mostly a rural phenomenon in Africa. As the number of CBOs active in urban areas increases along with the number of urban poor, there is a need for local government and community institutions to collaborate to improve urban management (Ibid., 35).
Syagga notes that the involvement of women is also crucial to the success of community-based solid waste management:
What is the attitude of women to solid wastes? What general concerns do women have about access to wastes, neighbourhood cleanliness, and how do they view their role in solid waste management as a business? Women are the generators of most of the household waste in Nairobi, and therefore their commitment to improve their earnings and work, would be a major entry to community-based solid waste management (Syagga, 1992: 34).
In Nairobi, many NGOs have a strong presence in the city's informal settlements. They play an important role in providing education, health care,and many other urban services. The strength of the NGOs included in this study is their recognition that solutions to urban problems are not isolated, but interconnected. This recognition is reflected in the integrated approach they are taking to environmental management and community development.
The following section describes the NGOs and CBOs engaged in community waste management in Nairobi. Further analysis of these case studies in later sections reveals how these CBOs and NGOs work together to improve their community environment both in terms of environmental management and sources of income.
2.2 City-wide Community Efforts
The Clean-Up Nairobi Campaign and the Mathare Youth Sports Association
The NCC does not have an official policy on community involvement in waste management, but does participate actively in several community clean-up programs. Most notable and well-publicized are the Mathare Youth Sports Association and the Clean-Up Nairobi Campaign. The Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) began in 1987 as a small self-help initiative combining community responsibility with sports (football). Community responsibility is promoted through clean-ups carried out once a week in the various villages comprising the Mathare Valley informal settlement in Nairobi. Garbage is collected and removed and drainage ditches are cleared with the aid of the NCC personnel and equipment (see Figures I.15 and I.16 in Appendix I). The idea behind the clean-up stemmed from the concern that "local governments and NGOs rarely seek to meet the needs of children , nor do they involve them in environmental action which will bring them direct benefits" (Munro, 1992: 207). The community service is performed in lieu of sports fees which most youths cannot afford to pay.
A few of the obstacles experienced by MYSA include health risks and injuries to the youths, difficulty involving older youths in the clean-ups, promoting community cooperation in waste disposal, a lack of ability to expand into recycling to generate income, involving female youths in sports, and an inability to accommodate street children in its project (Personal communication, MYSA). For 1991, the total expenditures of MYSA were $10,700 (US) on equipment and the coordinator's salary (Munro, 1992: 209). This money is provided by Scandinavian donor agencies who also sponsor MYSA's "all-star" team to travel to Europe for occasional tournaments.
The Clean Up Nairobi Campaign, founded in 1992, was a coalition of Nairobi residents who came together to solve the city's waste problem with a hands-on approach. Activities were planned in coordination with the NCC - much the same as the MYSA activities. The coalition was also looking into promoting waste reduction and composting. However, Clean Up Nairobi has recently collapsed due to management difficulties, including difficulties coordinating with, and getting support from the NCC and a lack of ability to devoet the time necessary to get the campaign in full-swing (Personal Communication, Clean Up Nairobi).
The success of MYSA and the potential of Clean Up Nairobi to engender community responsibility in Nairobi residents is essential to solving Nairobi's environmental problems. Sport was the motivating factor behind MYSA, CUN lacked such a motivation which resulted in its collapse. In examining several of the composting groups in Nairobi, it is evident that their success in waste management is also contingent on a motivating factor behind the waste management, in this case, income generation.
2.3 Local NGOs Promoting Composting
Less publicized than the MYSA and Clean Up Nairobi activities are the composting groups in Nairobi's low-income areas which are supported by a number of local NGOs. These composting groups were established by the NGOs through existing community-based organizations, usually women's savings or church groups. Three local NGOs (Uvumbuzi Club, Undugu Society of Kenya, and the Foundation for Sustainable Development in Africa) have provided support and training to approximately 12 CBOs doing composting in several of Nairobi's low-income areas. (Refer to Figure 2.1 - Greater Nairobi Area: Locations of Informal Settlements and Composting Groups.)
Uvumbuzi Club:
The Uvumbuzi Club is a membership organization with four programme areas: environmental conservation and lobbying activities; promoting cycling as a non-motorised mode of transportation; low-cost trips to areas of environmental interest; and providing members with a newsletter, videos, and a library of environmental publications.
As part of their environmental lobbying campaign, Uvumbuzi started a "Garbage is Money" campaign in October 1992 to promote conservation as a source of livelihood for the poor. Five groups in the Dandora, Huruma and Korogocho areas are involved in the composting of community organic waste. The group in Dandora also operates a demonstration garden plot where the benefits of composting are demonstrable. In low-income areas, where the organic component can comprise up to ninety percent of total wastes, composting is a very effective waste management strategy.
Uvumbuzi has gradually withdrawn its support for the composting groups, except in the areas of transporting and marketing the wastes. CBOs linked with Uvumbuzi include the Grogan 'A' Waste Recycling Group (Korogocho), the Kuku Women's Group (Dandora), the Block-Making Women's Group (Kariobangi), the Korogocho Mbolea Group and the Nyayo Market Group (Korogocho).
The Foundation for Sustainable Development in Africa:
The FSDA is a Kenyan registered NGO operating on the philosophy that for development to be truly sustainable, it must be conducted as a profit/loss business. FSDA receives no funding from donor agencies or countries. FSDA has five objectives:
- fostering exchange of information through effective networking among African agricultural communities;
- training and equipping local communities (especially youth and women) with skills in sustainable resource management;
- collecting and documenting information for effective planning and monitoring of agricultural and rural development projects;
- promoting harvesting, storage and marketing of surplus farm produce from local small-scale farmers; and
- enhancing indigenous and introduced food processing technologies.
FSDA worked in cooperation with the Uvumbuzi Club in the "Garbage in Money" public awareness campaign which included a "Garbage is Money" poster and an illustrated composting instruction booklet (FSDA, 1993). In addition, the FSDA publishes a bi-monthly newsletter and offers a series of comprehensive training courses in organic agriculture. FSDA was responsible for training the majority of composting groups and still sends an extension worker to each of the groups approximately every two weeks. FSDA assists in packaging and marketing the waste whenever possible. This usually involves hiring a pick-up truck to collect and deliver the compost to a point-of-sale area like the City Park Hawkers Market in Parklands.
CBOs linked with FSDA include the City Park Hawkers Market Group, the Wekhonye Women's Group (Dagoretti Corner); the Mwangaza Women's Group (Kayaba), a group in Mathare Valley and a new group (as of late 1995) in Nairobi's Kawangware area.
Undugu Society of Kenya:
The Undugu Society is a charitable organization started in 1973 by a Dutch clergyman to deal with the growing problem of street children in Nairobi. Initial activities included shelters, feeding programs, and basic education and vocational training for these children. Undugu has since expanded its activities, guided by the philosophy that in order to solve the problem of street children, one must go to the root of the problem (i.e., the communities from which these children come). Undugu is continuing its rehabilitative programs for street children, but has added shelter upgrading, counselling services, primary health care, informal sector development and urban agriculture to its list of projects.
Undugu became involved in the composting efforts of Uvumbuzi and FSDA because they wanted to promote an integrated approach to urban environmental problems through a clean living environment (waste recycling) and food security (urban agriculture). FSDA was responsible for training two groups linked with Undugu (Kinyago Bidii Group in Kitui-Pumwani and Ushirikisho Women's Group in Kibera). Undugu Society extension workers integrate the composting activities with other community development efforts.
2.4 Community-Based Organizations Involved in Composting
Three CBOs were selected for more detailed study with the help of extension workers and supervisory staff from the NGOs. The three groups chosen were the Kinyago Bidii Group, the Korogocho Mbolea Group and the City Park Hawkers Market Group.
Korogocho Mbolea Group:
This group was selected because of the very low-incomes of the members and the location of the group in one of Nairobi's largest informal settlements where there are few urban services and very little support from local NGOs. The group consists of women who both live and work in the Nyayo Village area of Korogocho. Most of the women are heads of their households and generate their limited income through petty trading, usually vegetable hawking.
Kinyago Bidii Group:
While still classified as poor, these women have more diversified sources of income thanks to the significant involvement of the Undugu Society in their community. The benefits accrued to them through Undugu include urban agriculture shambas, participation in handicraft manufacturing for the Undugu Society's gift shop, and shelter upgrading. Kinyago Village, located in the Kitui-Pumwani area near Eastleigh Section III, is also considerably smaller than the Korogocho group, making activities involving community cohesiveness, such as environmental management, much easier.
City Park Hawkers Market:
This group differs primarily in its location in the more affluent Parklands area of Nairobi. While the other two are residential communities, this group differs in that it is a commercial community of vegetable and used-clothing hawkers. While the vegetable stalls attract affluent shoppers from Parklands, Muthaiga and Westlands, the used-clothing dukas and hotelis (physically located at the back of the market) attract the people who work in the market, or domestic servants from the local area. The women involved in the composting group travel to and from the market on a daily basis. Most live in low-income areas in Nairobi's eastern areas, including Kayole and Mathare Valley.
2.5 Environmental Benefits of Composting
One of the central arguments of this study is that composting can be an effective strategy for alleviating the problems of unmanaged waste in Nairobi's informal settlements. Composting has managed to achieve a number of beneficial environmental effects:
Improved health:
Composting group members reported a reduction in the incidence of environmental illnesses, including diarrhoea and malaria (due to a decrease in stagnant water collecting in improperly disposed wastes). They noted significant improvement in the health of their children who often played in waste-contaminated areas due to a lack of open space for safe play.
The importance of a clean environment to human health, especially that of children, is described in detail by Hardoy et al. (1992) and Satterthwaite (1993).
Open sites used by children for play are often contaminated with faecal matter and with household wastes also attracting rats and other disease vectors. The increasing mobility of children and their natural curiosity and desire to explore can also expose them to many environmental hazards.... Where provision for safe play space is deficient, children will play on roads and garbage tips and other hazardous places (Hardoy et al., 1992: 105).
The health risks of exposure to pathogens are made worse in situations where limited access to clean water (usually because it is an expensive commodity which must be purchased in small quantities) results in poor hygiene practices in an attempt to conserve water. This puts women at risk more than men because of their gender-assigned roles in family and household maintenance (Ibid., 106).
Improved physical environment:
Better drainage was one of the environmental improvements reported by composting group members. Wastes were previously dumped in open drainage channels or in the Mathare or Nairobi Rivers. Flooding was therefore a problem as a result of the uncollected wastes blocking drainage channels.
Group members also noted how much more hospitable the outdoor environment has become - they no longer have to seek refuge inside their homes from the odours of rotting garbage. The psychosocial disorders associated with poor living environments are well reported in the literature. Hardoy et al. (1992: 94) report that depression, drug and alcohol abuse, suicide and violence are the most serious pyschosocial disorders traceable to poor quality living environments, including noise, over-crowding, inappropriate design, and poor sanitation and waste disposal.
Access has also improved in many of the areas since waste dumping is much more controlled. Foot paths and main roads through the villages and markets are no longer blocked. Better access has been achieved by group members encouraging other community members to dump their wastes in specific areas as opposed to random dumping. Group members also distribute plastic bags to community members to encourage the separation of organic wastes at source. They collect the bags once a week for composting.
Urban agriculture:
Two of the groups surveyed (Kibera and Kinyago) have small shambas for group members as a result of the involvement of the Undugu Society in their activities. In Kibera, the shambas are located on the edge of the settlement adjacent to the Nairobi Dam (Figure 2.2). In Kinyago, the shambas were located where the Nairobi River meets First Avenue Eastleigh, just north of Jogoo Road (Figure 2.3). The location of the shambas next to a source of water allows for crop production throughout the year, not only during the rainy season. The primary reason these groups produced compost is for use in their own shambas. There was general agreement that the improved crop yield resulting from the application of compost is worth the effort. Both groups expressed a desire to work even harder at composting if there is sufficient demand for them to sell excess compost.
2.6 Limitations of Composting as a Waste Management Strategy
Despite the ability of composting to deal with the environmental problems described above, many environmental problems remain unsolved and require action beyond the efforts of the various groups.
Inorganic Waste Problems:
Despite the proliferation of informal waste picking in Nairobi (Syagga's 1992 research estimated that scavengers collect 20 tonnes of the 800 to 1000 tonnes of solid waste generated daily in Nairobi), there are still inorganic components of the waste stream which are not being reused or recycled and therefore represent a serious environmental hazard. The most abundant of these wastes are the low-density polyethylene (LDPE) plastic bags which have come into popular use in East Africa over the past five to ten years (refer to Figures I.3 and I.11 in Appendix I).
LDPE plastics are currently not recyclable in Nairobi. Some of the composting groups (Hawkers Market and Dagoretti Corner) used to collect plastic bags for a local processor of recyclable plastics (Rupshi Enterprises), but recycling became unviable when chronic water shortages at Rupshi prevented proper cleaning of plastics before processing. In addition, the Hawkers Market group started a project using plastic bags to manufacture multi-purpose mats. However, the mats proved to be unmarketable as they could not sell them at a price that compensated for production costs. Although all of the groups reuse plastic bags to collect organic wastes from other households in the community, they still lack an appropriate method of final disposal.
Other components of the inorganic waste stream that pose environmental problems include alkaline batteries and other toxic wastes. Spent batteries are commonly seen scattered about informal settlements as they represent a popular power source in the unserviced areas. These wastes are hazardous to human and animal health as animals feed from waste piles containing such wastes. Humans consume the products of these animals (meat, eggs, milk), thereby putting their own health at risk.
In Mukuru-Kayaba, toxic industrial effluents were a major concern of residents since the village is located in Nairobi's industrial area. Low-income urban residents have no option but to live in these contaminated areas since they lack access to land in safer environments. They also depend on the proximity of their residence to their source of employment as public transportation is an expense to be avoided if at all possible (Hardoy et al. 1992: 107).
Human wastes:
The lack of proper sanitation facilities, including toilets, showers, and sewage disposal has been well documented in Nairobi (Lamba, 1994; USAID, 1993). According to a survey by Matrix Development Consultants, ninety four percent of the population in informal settlements does not have access to adequate sanitation. Up to sixty per cent of the population in Kibera and Korogocho must share pit latrines with approximately fifty other people (Matrix Development Consultants, 1993: 9). Even when toilet facilities are available, people complain that they are not conveniently located, that they are unclean, or that using them at night poses a security risk. Children are especially vulnerable to inadequate toilets because they may lack access to household keys which unlock the community toilets (refer to Figures I.10 and I.13 in Appendix I).
Access and Infrastructure:
While coordinated community efforts aimed at controlling dumping help to keep foot paths and unpaved access roads clear, many of the informal settlements are almost impassable during the rainy season as earthen paths turn to mud. This problem was noted to be especially severe in the villages located in river basins (Kinyago, Korogocho, and Kibera). Rivers and streams cutting through informal settlements also pose barriers to accessibility. (A foot bridge in Kibera had been dismantled for use as informal building materials.) The composting efforts have a positive impact on flooding, but there are still problems during the rainy season when plastics clog drainage channels.
Poor housing:
Extremely low household incomes prevent people from making investments in improved shelter. Indoor air quality is also poor as charcoal stoves and paraffin lamps are used without sufficient venting. These problems are also described in detail in Hardoy et al. (1992). Again, these problems have an especially severe impact on women who are likely to do the majority of the cooking. Only improvements in income generation can improve this situation.
Urban agriculture:
While composting has improved the viability of urban agriculture for two of the seven groups studied (Kinyago and Kibera), the other five groups do not have access to land for urban agriculture. Therefore, they produce compost solely for sale outside their of communities. Composting would be more viable for them if they could make use it themselves.
Livestock keeping is an important aspect of urban agriculture. Goats and poultry (and sometimes even swine and cattle) are commonly kept in Nairobi's informal settlements. Urban farmers often station their livestock next to waste heaps where the animals can feed off of disposed wastes. However, in feeding directly on wastes, animals can be injured by sharp or poisonous objects. Furthermore, in warm climates, pathogen growth in kitchen waste occurs rapidly, and livestock might become infected. Hence, the use of kitchen wastes as animal feed without separation from other waste materials is not recommended (UNCHS, 1989: 45).
Problems faced by urban cultivators include occasional harassment by city officials as the legal status of urban agriculture is unclear. In Kinyago and Kibera, even though access to urban shambas has been secured by the Undugu Society, the women cultivators complain of crop theft and human waste disposal in the shambas. The Undugu Society is now working with the cultivators to plan the shamba plots so that crop arrangement discourages potential polluters and thieves.
2.7 Composting and Rural-Urban Linkages
The benefits of compost-making are not limited to mitigating the waste problems of urban areas. The interviews with composting group members suggests that composting can have a positive impact on Kenya's rural areas. Evidence from Kenya indicates that urban-learned skills are extremely important to rural development, especially since most urban residents maintain strong links with their rural homes (Lee-Smith and Stren, 1991: 26). Many composting group members identified composting skills as valuable to their farming activities "back home." Those with rural farms intended to use the urban-produced compost in rural crop production.
The potential of urban compost for use in rural areas needs further investigation, but it was outside the scope of this study to explore the issue in detail. It appears that it could be an excellent means of reducing the negative impact of Nairobi's spreading ecological footprint by feeding resources back into the countryside, thereby lessening Nairobiís parasitic impact on the surrounding region. FSDA and the Uvumbuzi Club are well aware of this potential, and have directed educational efforts to spreading this awareness. Composting group members were also cognizant that use of compost produced in urban areas for rural agricultural could save the country a great deal of the foreign exchange spent on importing synthetic fertilizers. For small-scale farmers, promoting the use of compost is easily done through newsletters, including one put out through the Horticultural Crops Development Authority of Kenya. However, the political and foreign interests vested in large scale commercial farming make it difficult to promote the use of urban-produced compost in these cases.
Composting has managed to achieve environmental improvements in all seven of the areas included in this study. Maintaining a clean and healthy environment is the principal motivation for women who participate in composting, and this goal has been met to a significant extent. But improved waste management solves only a few of the informal settlements' environmental problems and does very little to improve housing conditions or human waste disposal, both of which also have a significant impact on the health of informal settlement residents. In chapter three, the ability of composting to generate income will be assessed. In this regard, composting could have a significant role in improving other environmental problems by providing residents with some of the income needed for improving other aspects of their communities.
Chapter Three:
Community Development through Composting