Just fresh from the United Nation’s Environmental Assembly meeting at Gigiri and I must confess that, listening to the presenters and going through pictorial slides about the negative impact about environmental degradation especial at the Ndandora dumpsite there must be a collaborate effort to end this mess and in doing this we need action – oriented people to drive this whole important agenda forward
It is important to note that almost all the presenters had past experiences of trying to resolve environmental issues in their small way but did meet some resistance from other players especially direct beneficiaries of the environmental mess [local authorities and scavengers] the main issues was lack of involvement by all the stakeholders in the community or neighboring communities. The above sentiments were confirmed by David Otieno a scavenger at Ndandora Ndumpsite who pointed out and I quote ‘we at the dumpsite are also not comfortable with the current situation but only participate in scavenging for livelihood as we do not have alternative, we can be part of the solution if engaged and given an opportunity to a better and heather livelihood program’ David sentiments points out to the need of building sustainable community members that are not prone to vulnerabilities and this will lead into the fast steam of managing our waste as a country
Most countries are overwhelmed by the amount of uncontrolled dumping of waste and the situation has not spared some most assumed good western countries, though compared to African countries the west has been able to recycle some of their waste into useful products some of which have found their ways into Africa. In Africa most countries do not have the potential to have their waste material handled just like their counterparts in the west.
The irony of most African country has always been copy pasting the models used in the west to try solving their environmental management issues hence explaining the ever unending issues of proper management of our waste. What we need to get from our friends from the west is an advice on how they have been able to put in place proper waste management systems, after which we need our own locally devised template to solve our waste management plan in the country
Charles Ochieng, Youth and gender Officer