BEH-1-4015-3/2015

ASSIGNMENT OF FOOD TECHNOLOGY

As the urban population in Nairobi grows, so does the solid waste
management burden - a situation worsened by poor funding for
urban sanitation departments and a lack of enforcement of
sanitation regulations.
At least 100 million people in East Africa lack access to improved sanitation, according to UN
sources.

“Due to budgetary deficiencies, town authorities find it difficult to address solid waste
management in a sustainable manner. In addition, insufficient public awareness and enforcement
of legislation is also a hindrance,” Andre Dzikus, coordinator of the urban basic services section
of the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), told IRIN.

In Nairobi, a large percentage of solid waste is managed by the private sector and NGOs due to
public-private partnerships, says Dzikus.

The city council’s solid waste department, like those in Kampala and Dar es Salaam, is not well
equipped, with transport vehicles few and often poorly serviced, despite increasing waste
quantities due to rapid urbanization, he added.

Understaffing and a lack of skilled staff in waste management is also a challenge.

Without proper controls, solid waste is often dumped in abandoned quarries or similar sites. In
Nairobi, for example, municipal waste is taken to the Dandora dumping site, a former quarry
some 15km east.

Dandora slum residents who live close to the dumpsite are therefore exposed to environmental
and disease risks, said Dzikus.

“Burning plastic produces very toxic fumes, such as furans and dioxins, which are very harmful
to human beings and the environment. Most of the uncontrolled dumpsites are some of the major
sources of greenhouse gases contributing to global climate change,” he added.

Although Nairobi has a sanitation policy, the Environmental Sanitation and Hygiene Policy
2007, which recognizes the role of NGOs, community-based organizations (CBOs) and the
Kenya Water and Sanitation Network (KEWASNET), often there is little collaboration in service
delivery, according to a February report, Comparing urban sanitation and solid waste
management in East African metropolises: The role of civil society organizations.
“Sanitation service delivery for the urban poor is a disconnected pluralism between government
and NGOs/CBOs institutions,” it states.

Living with waste

More often than not, the urban poor have to make do with living amid waste despite the health
risks; child mortality in the slums is 2.5 times higher than in other areas of Nairobi, according to
the UN World Health Organization (WHO).

In the Mathare slums, for example, the sight of children playing among plastic bags full of
human excrement, referred to as “flying toilets”, is common.

“We use plastic bags to relieve ourselves because the few toilets that are there are too
expensive,” Mama Annah, a resident of Mathare, told IRIN.

“If I have to choose between paying for the toilet and buying food, the choice is easily made.”

The improper disposal of faecal matter within settled areas is a major public health problem. “We
throw the plastic bags in the streets because there is no other alternative. Our children have no
[other] place to play,” added Mama Annah.

Insecurity and a lack of hygiene awareness are other problems.

“We also have to work together, because every time some of us try to keep clean, someone
defecates in front of your door.”

Health risk

According to WHO, open defecation was the only sanitation practice available to 33 percent of
the population in East Africa in 2006. Lack of access to proper sanitation, including clean water,
is a major cause of diarrhoea, the second biggest killer of children in developing countries,
according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Many slum dwellers in East African cities pay five to seven times more per litre of water than the
average North American, notes WHO.

And it is children and women who suffer the most due to poor sanitation, according to Akiba
Mashinani Trust, an NGO focusing on the rights of slum dwellers in Nairobi.

“One of the health risks women have is [with] reproductive health because they use public toilets
that are not properly maintained. Some of them have suffered from urinary [tract] infections,”
Edith Kalela, a communication officer at Akiba Mashinani Trust, told IRIN.
The biggest challenge to waste management in the slums is the lack of disposal space, added
Kalela. “Since these people live in informal settlements, the government has failed to manage
their solid waste.”

Lack of land tenure

Slum residents often do not own the land they live on, risking eviction.

In the Huruma slum area, also in Nairobi, Akiba Mashinani Trust has helped residents obtain
some land by negotiation with the government and the city council, for which a communal title
deed was issued. “If you have land, you have more prospects to do developments,” said Kalela.

“We help these people build houses that are self-contained. Even if we build toilets, there are
over 200,000 households, so how many toilets will we build for public use? A sustainable
solution is to help them build a house that is self-contained.”

In the past, the government has attempted to improve living conditions in the slum areas under
the Kenya Slum Upgrading Programme (KENSUP), but without much success. KENSUP has
recently completed a sanitation project in the Kibera slum, handing over seven water sanitation
facilities to community groups there, but there are concerns over the project’s sustainability.
Safe management of wastes from health-care activities
Health impacts of health-care
waste
Hazards of health-care waste
Health-care waste includes a large component of general waste and a
smaller proportion of hazardous waste.

Types of hazards

Exposure to hazardous health-care waste can result in disease or injury.

The hazardous nature of health-care waste may be due to one or more of

the following characteristics:

 it contains infectious agents;

 it is genotoxic;
 it contains toxic or hazardous chemicals or pharmaceuticals;
 it is radioactive;
 it contains sharps.

Persons at risk

All individuals exposed to hazardous health-care waste are potentially

at risk, including those within health-care establishments that generate

hazardous waste, and those outside these sources who either handle such

waste or are exposed to it as a consequence of careless management. The

main groups at risk are the following:

 medical doctors, nurses, health-care auxiliaries, and hospital mainte-

 nance personnel;
  patients in health-care establishments or receiving home care;
 visitors to health-care establishments;
 workers in support services allied to health-care establishments, such

as laundries, waste handling, and transportation;

 workers in waste disposal facilities (such as landfills or incinerators),

 including scavengers.
 The hazards associated with scattered, small sources of health-care
 waste should not be overlooked; waste from these sources includes that
 generated by home-based health care, such as dialysis, and that gener-
 ated by illicit drug use (usually intravenous).

Hazards from infectious waste and sharps

Infectious waste may contain any of a great variety of pathogenic micro-

organisms. Pathogens in infectious waste may enter the human body by

a number of routes:

Health

Effects of poor waste disposal.

we all throw garbage, junk and rubbish away anyhow. Imagine there was no authority to
supervise waste management activities from all the sources mentioned earlier. Imagine we all
just sent our rubbish to the landfill, or just dumped them in a nearby river. What do you think
will happen? A disaster!

Environmental Effects

a. Surface water contamination:

Waste that end up in water bodies negatively change the chemical composition of the water.
Technically, this is called water pollution. This will affect all ecosystems existing in the water. It
can also cause harm to animals that drink from such polluted water.

b. Soil contamination:

Hazardous chemicals that get into the soil (contaminants) can harm plants when they take up
the contamination through their roots. If humans eat plants and animals that have been in
contact with such polluted soils, there can be negative impact on their health.

c. bulletPollution:

Bad waste management practices can result in land and air pollution and can cause respiratory
problems and other adverse health effects as contaminants are absorbed from the lungs into other
parts of the body. (Pollution is fully covered here)

d. bulletLeachate

Liquid that forms as water trickles through contaminated areas is called Leachate. It forms very
harmful mixture of chemicals that may result in hazardous substances entering surface water,
groundwater or soil.

Economic Effects

a. Municipal wellbeing:

Everyone wants to live and visit places that are clean, fresh and healthy. A city with poor
sanitation, smelly and with waste matter all over the place do not attract good people, investors
and tourists. Such cities tend to have poor living standards.

b. Recycling revenue:

Cities that do not invest in recycling and proper waste control miss out on revenue from
recycling. They also miss out on job opportunities that come from recycling, composting and
businesses that work with them.