Waste management in Botswana

Abstract: Waste is anything which is considered to be no longer useful to anyone. In reality, it actually possesses the ability to be the raw material for several other processes and applications. Improper handling of wastes could result in several environmental hazards such as air pollution, soil erosion, methane emissions, low birth rate and others. In developing countries, proper handling of wastes is one of the important topics to be focussed from an environmental perspective. This thesis aims to propose an improved waste collection system in Gaborone through investigating the current waste management practices in Gaborone from different perspectives. Several stakeholders were interviewed for gathering information related to the present waste legislations, waste collection, treatment, and disposal methods. A composition study was also conducted along with the other research teams in order to support the objective of this thesis. The results shows that the current waste management practices has certain flaws which the management has to overcome in order to avoid the environmental impacts caused by the waste generation in Gaborone. Basic Recycling and treatment facilities are absent in Gaborone. The local government do not have any updated plans for the proper handling of wastes. The obtained results are critically analysed to showcase the existing flaws in the waste management practices, and using the state of the art knowledge in waste management the research team suggests an improved waste collection system for Gaborone considering the economic and environmental conditions.