The Kiteezi landfill in Kampala, Uganda. (AFP)
As Uganda’s capital city Kampala continues to grapple with potholes and air pollution, boom! it’s hit by the tragedy of the Kiteezi waste landfill landslide that injured many and killed about 25 people.
Under the Kampala City Authority (KCCA) that has injured and killed close to 25 people.
Kampala is one of the most unclean cities and planning is poor, from infrastructure development to governance. It’s also struggling with waste management when compared with its East African counterparts.
The Kiteezi landfill falls under the Kampala City Authority and, according to the KCCA, the population of Kampala is about three million people, of which 1.8 million live in slums and most don’t have toilets. In addition to residential homes, the landfill is also used for garbage from markets, schools, hospitals, hostels, city abattoirs and other public utilities.
The waste collected is non-hazardous biodegradable waste and hazardous waste, with larger volumes of cytotoxic waste, sharp waste, chemical waste and pharmaceutical waste.
It is apparent that environmental health surveillance as a result of improper waste management has been neglected.
The interlinkages between environmental health and waste management ranges from soil contamination, greenhouse gases and other ecological damage to diseases and air pollution, all of which affects human health.
The Kiteezi landfill tragedy is not a natural disaster; it was caused by not having a holistic and sound waste management system in place.
Besides the death from the Kiteezi landslide, the landfill itself is already having a devastating effect on people in that it encroaches on neighbourhoods where people live and go to school.
Landfills emit methane, which is more lethal than the carbon dioxide produced by them, contributing to global warming which causes climate change. According to the World Health Organisation, climate change affects people’s health through noncommunicable diseases in a number of ways. For example air pollution can cause strokes, asthma, pulmonary disease and lung cancer; heatwaves can cause cardiovascular diseases; and wildfires cause suffocation, burns, respiratory problems.
But, if managed correctly, a landfill can generate power from biodegradable waste, as well as compost. Recycling facilities can separate out items such as plastic and bottles. Hazardous waste should not enter a landfill.
It is easy to blame the Kampala Capital City Authority for not investing in the construction of secure landfills and recycling facilities. But Ugandans appear not to even understand proper waste management from households and institutions.
Many of us improperly dispose of waste without sorting between the biodegradable and nonbiodegradable, which makes it even more difficult for collectors like the Nabugabo Updeal Joint Venture, a solid waste service provider for the KCCA.
Sound waste management in Kampala and other cities requires effective and efficient practices such as reduction, reuse, recycling and proper waste disposal to mitigate other risks and thus protect both environmental and human health wellbeing.
Infrastructure development of landfills and recycling centres alone is not enough, though. Communities must be involved through education and awareness of proper waste disposal.
The Uganda government, through legislation, needs to introduce and get by-in from industries (the biggest polluters) to reuse and recycle products such as paper, plastics, glass and metal — and to dispose of hazardous material safely.
This by-in will hopefully change consumer behaviour regarding waste.
The government has established institutions, good policy frameworks and legislation but implementation and enforcement leaves a lot to be desired.
Therefore the government should introduce an effective environmental health surveillance system for effective monitoring and evaluation to assess areas of improvement and mitigation
It should also set up systems for “waste to energy” to reduce larger volumes of garbage and thus prevent danger to human health and death such as those that occurred in the Kiteezi landfill landslide in Kampala.
People need to be moved away from the landfill and be offered social upliftment programmes to improve livelihoods as part of the sustainable environmental health management.
Kampala city authority can benchmark Vienna in Austria which has an anaerobic digester that uses hundreds of thousands of tonnes of kitchen waste a year to generate electricity.
Robert Kigongo is a sustainable development analyst.