Municipal Solid Waste Composition Analysis Study Juba ... - UNEP

6.2 Waste GenerationThe outcome from SSDO’s waste generation exercise is somewhat puzzling – producingan average household waste generation rate within Juba of 1.11 kg/cap. Day. This amountis considerably above the range found by UNEP’s International EnvironmentalTechnology Centre (2009) in a range of African cities (Accra, Ibadan, Dakar, Abidjan,and Lusaka) and determined a generation rate of 0.5-0.8 kg/capita/day.Still more perplexing is the fact that SSDO’s exercise determined that low-income houseswere actually producing more waste than high-income houses – average figures being0.87 and 1.14 kg/capita/day respectively. This statistic goes against the global trend inwhich waste generation increases in proportion to wealth.6.3 Waste DensityDensities in the range of 90 to 180 kilograms per cubic meter (kg/m 3) for un-compactedMSW are common in OECD case studies. 1 Waste densities in African cities, by contrast,may be in the range of 180 to 540 kg/m 3 due to the high moisture and putrescible organiccontent.The average density for Juba’s waste was found to be 112 kg/m 3, which is low comparedto that of an average African city. This figure can probably be accounted for by twofactors. The first is that the study was conducted during the dry season and so themoisture content was low. The second is that, in general, the organic content of Juba’swaste is low in comparison to that of the average African city.1 It is worth noting that compacted MSW, as delivered by collection vehicles with mechanical compactors,can have densities up to two to three times that of uncompacted waste depending on the composition of thewaste, and the type of compacting equipment.Municipal solid waste composition analysis study – Juba, South Sudan 18