Innovative recycling in Kenya: Waste as a resource

Images often come from Africa of landfills stretching to the horizon with scrap dumped by Europe. There is huge potential in old electronic devices in particular.

Everything is done by hand here: Nahashon Maina uses a screwdriver to remove electronic components from the circuit board of an old computer. Together with his colleagues from the WEEE Center in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, he recycles e-waste. “It’s high time we got the materials back on the market,” explains Maina. “Without having to dig for raw materials again.”

Pioneers in the field of circular economy

The young company has been doing pioneering work since 2012. They are the first in Kenya to do everything in one: collect, disassemble and recycle e-waste. For example, they assemble new computers from the components. They send raw materials that they cannot recycle themselves to Europe. They were able to collect 230 tons of electronic waste last year. Kenya produces more than 200 times that amount every year.

“It’s about the environment, reducing toxins that pollute water, soil and air. We’re raising awareness and sensitizing communities that e-waste needs to be disposed of in the right way,” explains Joseph Oliech, project manager at the WEEE-Centre. They have set up a pick-up service, work with large companies so that scrap does not end up in the dump, but is brought to them in the industrial area every evening. They have also set up collection points. “We focus on the circular economy,” says the project manager. “We try to develop local solutions to be able to dispose of e-waste sustainably on site.”

Waste recycling as a future market

Electronic waste not only accumulates in the country itself, it is also imported – often illegally – into Africa. The import of e-waste is banned in Kenya, but old devices still find their way into the East African country. They are imported as used, explains Oliech, and then last another year before they finally break down. Recycling old devices and disposing of them properly is becoming increasingly important.

The WEEE Center not only uses and recycles, but also trains. “We also focus on the socio-economic aspect. We take care of the young people,” says Oliech. “How can we convince them to become active in the sustainability area around waste management?” The company trains young Kenyans in IT, hardware and recycling. So that they can find work or become self-employed. Garbage is a future market in Africa.

Often only the poorest recycle

Because the mountains of rubbish keep growing, like in Dandora, Nairobi’s rubbish dump. Every day the trucks come, unload the garbage, mixed up and mixed up – there is almost no separation of garbage in Kenya. “70 to 80 percent of the garbage on the African continent could be recycled,” says Dorothy Otieno of the Center for Environment, Justice and Development. “But it’s only around four percent. The rest ends up in such dumps.”

In Dandora, it’s the poorest who then sort the still usable materials from the garbage. Unprotected, they dig through sometimes toxic waste, trying to survive. “I look for plastic and plastic bottles. Then I have them weighed and sell them,” says Margaret Akeyo, one of the garbage collectors on Dandora. “This way I can buy food for my children.”

Manufacturers and other countries are also responsible

The responsibility for the waste also lies with the manufacturing companies and countries, criticizes Otieno. “When products are brought into Kenya or Africa from outside, they may contain materials that we cannot recycle here. Instead, they are thrown away,” she says. “They get into the rivers and seas. Then it affects everyone in the end.” Anyone who sells products here should not be released from responsibility – and must also think about whether and how the packaging can be recycled in Africa.

“Waste is a cross-border issue, no matter where in the world it is generated,” adds Richard Munang of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). “We have to look at how the waste is produced so that it ultimately remains part of an economic cycle and does not destroy the environment.” This would be easy with organic waste, which makes up more than 50 percent of household waste in Kenya. According to Munang, they could be reused: “As briquettes to replace coal in cooking. Or as biogas, that’s clean energy.”

A “Fountain of Possibilities”

Or as a natural fertilizer: This is how TakaTaka Solutions works in Nairobi. The company collects much of its waste itself, separates it into compostable and non-compostable, and turns the leftover food into natural fertilizer. “Waste should first go to sorting facilities,” says managing director Daniel Paffenholz. “It will then be much easier, more efficient and under better working conditions to get this waste out of the environment.”

The company now also recycles lightweight single-use plastic, melts it down into pellets and resells the plastic flakes. According to the company, 95 percent of the waste collected can be recycled. “Waste must be understood as a resource,” says Richard Munang from UNEP. “The processing of which creates jobs for young people. That’s the way garbage has to be seen: as a source of opportunity.” Garbage as an opportunity – not only for Kenya.