Rethinking organic municipal solid waste management in Kenyan urban areas

Abstract: Organic waste forms a big share of municipal solid waste, especially in developing countries. Its management is however faced with many challenges ranging from limited financial and technical capacity to lack of, or weak policy enforcement. This causes poor management of the waste leading to open dumping and disposal in un-engineered landfills. Such practices have adverse effects on both the environment and the people. To improve the situation, actors in different locations have been applying circular economy approaches to manage organic waste better and recover resources from it. Such two cases are Waste Concern, a social enterprise in Bangladesh, and the Sri Lankan government through the National ‘Pilisaru’ Waste Management Project. These examples can provide a learning opportunity for other actors who might want to implement similar approaches. By using the Integrated Solid Waste Management (ISWM) model and applying an extrapolation-based case research framework, this thesis aims to determine what lessons can be learned from the two case studies, and how Kenya can establish similar approaches to address the challenges facing organic waste management in the country. The findings show that the adoption of simple, low-cost but labour-intensive technology is a key element of these approaches. Apart from this, there are other crucial features such as having marketing strategies for the product, forming strategic partnerships, and promoting waste separation.