april-2019

44 / TREND / Recycling
TREND / 45
Treasure
Trove
Besides being a challenge, Africa’s rising
mountain of SOLID WASTE is now a
source of raw material that’s being used to
create products and energy.
text Andrea Dijkstra
DUE TO population growth, rapid urbanisation, a growing
middle class, and changing consumption habits and production
patterns, Africa’s municipal solid waste is increasing exponentially.
According to the Africa Waste Management Outlook
2018 report – published by the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) – solid waste will hit 244 million tonnes
per year by 2025, almost double the 2012 figure.
When solid waste is not managed properly, it results in
severe environmental pollution, which in turn has serious
harmful effects on human health and the environment. The
good news is that most of the waste produced in Africa can
be recycled and reused to create new products. Currently, only
about 50 percent of Africa’s waste is collected. The rest usually
ends up in illegal dumpsites, gutters and drainage in Africa’s
cities. Given that waste collection and recycling is a multi-billion
dollar industry in the US and Europe, a growing number of
African entrepreneurs are now seeing the business opportunities
in waste collection and recycling.
MORE TRASH, MORE TREES?
Kenyan social enterprise EcoPost turns waste plastic into
eco-friendly plastic/waste-wood lumber profiles that have
numerous purposes, such as fencing, road signage, outdoor
furniture and decking. “Nowadays, we produce over 100,000
metric tonnes of waste in Kenya per day, of which 20 percent
is plastic,” says Lorna Rutto, who quit her job with a bank in
2009 to start EcoPost. “I saw an opportunity to turn this waste
into useful, environmentally friendly products.” Rutto grew up
in Kenya’s Kaptembwa slum where, as a schoolgirl, she was
already troubled by plastic litter and decided to turn some of it
into earrings. “This wasn’t really about the earrings. I just wanted
to find a way to get rid of all that plastic,” says Rutto. >
It’s art
Kenyan artists are turning rubbish
into art. Sculptor Cyrus Kabiru
makes flamboyant spectacles
– known as C-Stunners – from
recycled electronic waste and
objects he finds on the streets
of Nairobi. Olu Amoda, an
internationally celebrated Nigerian
sculptor, creates metal sculptures
culled from industrial detritus. He
earned the Grand Prix Léopold
Sédar Senghor at the 11th Dakar
Biennale in 2014 for his piece,
Sunflower. And Kenyan enterprise
Ocean Sole produces outstanding
rubber sculptures made of flip-flops
found along the beaches and
waterways in Kenya.
Jeroen van Loon