Dear family and friends,
After a 12 hours flight I arrived in Nairobi early in the morning. Without visiting the capital, I immediately took the bus straight to Ahero. Seven hours later, I got welcomed in by Kelly and Kilian, two members of the Ebenezer Life Center.
The project was actually launched a few weeks before my arrival in Kenya. I asked Tommy (Assistant Manager of Ebenezer) to form a waste management team so they could start to brainstorm on the topic. That helped us a lot forward because on the 18th of February we had our first meeting with het complete team (Figure 1 ). We decided to change our name from waste management committee into recourse committee to show the people that waste doesn’t exist. During an intensive meeting we discussed the opportunities of waste management for the Ebenezer life Centre.
Members of the Recourse Committee:
- Lotte: Studying development in Africa
- Tommy Lee: Chief Manager Ebenezer Life centre
- Peter: Social Worker
- Kilian: Biotechnical Engineer
- Josephine: Natural recource manager
- Kelly: Logistic manager
Currently, the Ebenzer Life Center is not manageing their waste at all. Instead ther are burning everything on 8 major dumpsites on places where children are playing (Figure 2). A few weeks ago they installed their first bin (Figure 3). But as you can see on the picture bellow it is difficult to separate the waste once it is dumped alltogether. Therefore we opt to replace these dumpsites by special bins with 4 compartiments: paper, plastic, organic and other. If waste is not separated at source, it becomes difficult to apply any integrated or sustainable waste management techniques, such as reusing and recycling.
As mentioned before there are three major reason why waste is not handed properly. The first stage of the project is to analyse and study the current system. This will be conducted in three major subdivisions:
1. Interviews
Together with social worker Peter Gwadage (Figure 4), we will conduct interviews from the local population. Peter has done many studies regarding social works and was super excited to join the team. During two weeks we will interview the locals with questions related to waste management in Ahero. By this, we could have a clearer insight in the participation from the people to develop a proper waste management.
2. Sampling
To know the quality and quantity of waste generated in Ahero, we need to estimate the weight and the volume of the waste per customer in a given period of time (per day). Therefore we will have to collect waste samples from households and businesses.
If we know the likely waste composition, we can decide whether recycling is an attractive option
3. Observation
By observing the current situation we will be able to scope with all major stakeholders involved in waste management. One of the major stakeholders is the County of Ahero. They are collecting the waste from the market and transporting it straight to the dumpsite. Visits to the dumpsite in Ahero and Kisumu will give us an insight on how the waste is handled. Part of the observation is to map all waste steams in Ahero and the Ebenezer Life Centre. By visiting companies operating in recycling we could learn from their experience and find out the best available technologies within the region.