Material Flow and Stakeholder Analysis for a Transfer & Recycling Station in Gaborone, Botswana

Abstract: Landfilling waste material is still one of the most common methods to take care of waste in a big part of the world. Gaborone, the capital of Botswana located in the southern part of Africa is no different in this way. The major part of all waste is landfilled in Gaborone and there is only a minor part of all collected material that is recycled. One solution that earlier studies suggest is to build a transfer and recycling station in the city of Gaborone that can contribute to a more sustainable waste management. This study aims to identify the major waste streams of recyclable waste and also the major stakeholders that are active in this area through an exploratory study involving interviews, a workshop and a survey. The result of this thesis can hopefully assist in the preparations for such a transfer station. The conclusions of this study are many and contains of both hard facts and also loose ends that can contribute to pursue further studies. The first important result is that all the waste collection companies transports everything they collects to a landfill and it is only recycling organizations that are working with collection and recycling in Gaborone. These recycling organizations are a few but smaller compared to the waste collection companies in collected amounts of material. Besides these collection organizations, Gaborone City Council, the local municipality works with collection of household waste and the collaboration between these three groups that operates in the same environment is very poor. All the interviewed stakeholders showed a positive interest in the transfer and recycling station but there is only a small part of the commercial business in Gaborone that believes in a more serious waste management than landfilling. Despite that one major shopping mall actually sort out recyclables and saves 30% in waste management costs thanks to that. Another issue is the prevailing cultural contradictions that is obvious among the organizations in Gaborone. The last two bigger issues is the tremendously dull political bureaucracy that is appearing in Botswana and also that voices are raised that corruption is great beneath the surface.