City Hall eyes street families for garbage collection in new plan

City Hall plans to contract street families to collect garbage in Nairobi in an ambitious plan meant to finally deal with the menace as well as empower them economically.

This is part of a wider plan that will see two new landfills complete with recycling plants set up in Kamukunji and Lang’ata for sustainable waste management in the capital city.

The street families will be mobilised through saccos and deployed at the different sites.

“In these sites, street families will be mobilised through saccos so as to participate in garbage collection as a way of economically empowering them,” said City Hall.

According to Nairobi County Annual Development Plan for financial year ending June 30, 2023, the project to set up the new landfill sites will commence late next year.

At the new dump-sites, waste will be turned into methane gas which in turn will be used to power electricity generating plants.

Nairobi generates 3,000 metric tonnes of waste in a day, mostly of which ends up at the city’s largest dumping site in Dandora.

The dump-site, however, is reeling under the weight of excessive solid waste holding over 1.8 million tonnes of waste against its 500,000 tonnes capacity.

Transfer stations

“The aspiration is to deliver a clean healthy city where garbage is collected and safely disposed of and the environment is green and alive, and free of man-made waste,” read the document.

In 2018, City Hall said it had set aside Sh20 million to build two transfer stations- a point where collected garbage is sorted to determine what will be reused or throw away.

In the short term, the Ann Kananu-led administration is looking at overhauling existing garbage collection system as well as reviewing existing legal regime.

Last month, the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) said a plan to establish a waste regeneration firm in Ruai, Nairobi to recycle garbage generated in the city is at an advanced stage.