Outside the Waste Land: An American Perspective on Nairobi’s Dandora Garbage Dump
Some days, the best meal consumed by a child in Dandora Municipal Dump is a cup of half-eaten, spoiled yogurt and a piece of brownie left over from someone’s in-flight meal on their way to Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. When the convoys from the airlines roll into the dump, any bits of food are fought over and eaten before even leaving the truck. Any food that makes it to the ground is left for women, children, and animals scavenging for scraps.
Not even five miles from the central business district of Nairobi, Kenya, is the sole dumping site for the entire capital’s waste, forming mountains of trash over its four decade existence. The Dandora Municipal Dump covers thirty acres, containing the waste of nearly four million people, with 2,000 tons being dumped daily. Every day an estimated 6,000 men, women, and children search through the garbage for recyclable materials, food, and anything of value to sell, earning around $2.50 on a good day. They search side by side with pigs and dogs, digging through used needles and condoms, medical products, plastics, metals, human waste, industrial waste, chemical runoff, and everything else thrown out by the residents of Kenya’s biggest city. Respiratory problems from breathing toxic fumes, high blood levels of lead and other metals, and diseases run rampant through the population on the fringes of Nairobi. The people living in Dandora and the slums around Nairobi are not only outside the city limits, but outside the purview of the system, subject to the structural and power imbalances common throughout the developing world. Thousands of people affected by the Dandora dump are deprived of internationally recognized human rights, such as life and security of person, access to public services, favorable conditions of work, a standard of living adequate for health, and political participation.
Nearly one million people live in the slums around Nairobi and in the Dandora dump itself. A 2007 United Nations Environment Programme study reported that 50% of children tested in Dandora were found to have blood lead levels at or above the internationally recognized level; lead poisoning is known to lead to damage to the central nervous system and brain as well as kidney failure. The study also found that almost 50% of children tested had respiratory problems from breathing toxic gases from the industrial, plastic, and metal waste in the dump. Cholera, diphtheria, typhoid, and diarrheal diseases race unchecked through the dump and surrounding communities, and the UN estimates that 88% of diarrheal incidents result from unsafe water and poor sanitation. There is no sanitation in Dandora, no waste management, and few toilets, leading to increasingly dangerous health conditions. Infrastructure is nonexistent, as the community represents “informal housing,” often considered illegal squatting.
The informal nature of the slum communities leads to power held by gangs and cartels, who keep people in submission through corruption and violence. Dandora has been slated for closing for years, since the city government of Nairobi declared it full in 2001. Yet 2,000 tons of waste is trucked in daily, and progress toward moving the dumpsite is hindered by power imbalances and economic interests. Cartels and powerful businessmen keep support for decommissioning low, as they stand to gain a great deal from charging visitors for “security” and acting as middlemen for the recycling companies. The city council of Nairobi has made plans to open a new site near the airport, but officials warn that the birds attracted to the garbage will interfere with the planes. So the issue is perpetually delayed, illuminating the class divide in Nairobi, as the most disenfranchised and desperate are living in the dump itself, and yet have no voice in the plans for their future. The dump provides a livelihood for thousands, and the prospect of its liquidation leaves many fearing for their lives and families: “They are fully aware that Dandora is not good for their health, but a slow death is better than no life at all.”
A 2012 article from The Guardian sums up this dichotomy:
“the work is perilous and the rewards paltry, to say nothing of the discomfort of spending the day in a smoky, stinking wasteland. But for those who live in the neighborhoods around the dump, it offers survival. That is Dandora’s paradox – it is a source of life, but also of illness and, occasionally, death.”
Dandora is a human rights nightmare from every angle – environmental, health, civil, political. The people picking through the garbage represent the poorest of the poor, often facing double displacement after becoming refugees from rural villages, and then again if the dump site is closed. Confronting the waste issue and human rights crisis that is Dandora will take an integrated effort by coordinated agencies and government officials, dedicated to a sustainable solution. But this effort can begin right now with individuals agreeing that this cannot persist any longer.
A Silent Attacker: Lead Poisoning in Dandora’s Children
A child in the West playing in an older home could be exposed to lead poisoning from lead-based paint, lead in the soil from gasoline, or from contaminated water. A child in Dandora doesn’t have to worry about lead-based paint in the home, because home is most likely a makeshift structure constructed from cardboard or aluminum found in the dumpsite. While a child in the US or Europe plays with toys strictly regulated to prevent choking or adverse health effects, a child in Dandora searches through garbage for something to eat. Both these children could be exposed to lead in their lifetime, but the responses, like their locations, are worlds apart.
A 2007 United Nations Environment Programme study reported that 50% of children tested in Dandora had blood lead levels at or above the internationally recognized level; lead poisoning is known to damage the central nervous system and brain as well as contribute to kidney failure. The internationally recognized blood lead level is 10 micrograms per deciliter of blood; in the US “blood lead level of concern” has been lowered to 5 micrograms per deciliter, reflecting the growing understanding of how lead absorption affects bodily functions and development. In Dandora, some children have blood lead levels of 29 or 32 micrograms per deciliter, more than 6 times the level considered acceptable in the US. Since lead poisoning is linked to behavioral problems and learning issues, it becomes not just an individual challenge, but a public health one.
The UN study of Dandora also found that almost 50% of children tested had respiratory problems from breathing toxic gases from the industrial, plastic, and metal waste in the dump. Between 2009 and 2011, more than 9,000 cases of respiratory infections were treated at the Kariobangi Catholic Mission Clinic near the dump. Cholera, diphtheria, typhoid, various skin conditions, and diarrheal diseases race unchecked through the site and surrounding communities, and there is no sanitation in Dandora, no waste management, and few toilets, leading to increasingly dangerous health conditions.
The Blacksmith Institute, in its report, “The World’s Worst Pollution Problems: Assessing Health Risks at Hazardous Waste Sites,” calculates the impact of pollution in “Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs),” which incorporate the total number of life years lost due to early death caused by disease. Industrial and municipal dump sites represent the fifth highest hazard to health, resulting in the loss of over 1.2 million DALYs. According to the report, the pollutant most commonly found in polluted areas is lead, resulting from industrial waste, lead-acid battery manufacturing or recycling, and mining processes. Just as it has been documented in the population of Dandora, the Blacksmith Institute report warns that lead poisoning affects brain and kidney function, and since lead is an element, it cannot be broken down and so continues to build up in the body as a person is exposed to it. Children absorb nearly five times as much lead as adults, and so are at particular risk of lead poisoning, as can be seen by the UN study from Dandora.
These health conditions do not just harm those living in the dump site itself, but affect the population of surrounding slums, since the Nairobi River runs beside the dumpsite and carries pollutants downstream into surrounding communities. Children play in the dump, people of all ages sort through the garbage without gloves or any other protection, and chemical and industrial waste frequently burns in the mountains of trash, releasing toxic fumes and smoke into the air. As 2,000 tons of waste, from nearly 4 million inhabitants of Nairobi, continue to be dumped in Dandora every day, the health problems persist and continue to affect thousands of people in the poorest communities in the country. This is not an individual issue, this is a public health issue, a human rights issue, and a representation of the disparity between the “haves” and the “have nots.” While children in the US are protected from lead poisoning by regulations on products, children in Dandora live and play in a garbage dump, exposed to every disease and pollutant. Simply because of where they were born, these children face extreme hardships and obstacles to a healthy life. But that can change with a comprehensive and coordinated effort by the Kenyan government and international partners committed to building a better future for the people of Dandora.
Smartphone Recycling Facts
Via http://infographicsmania.com/
Kenya is responsible to more than 17,000 tonnes of E-waste every year.
Mobile phones contribute more than 150 tonnes
-UNEP 2009-
Looking for a place to deposit your old electronics? Well Safaricom Kenya began a e-waste management programme last year.
You can now drop off your used electronics at any of the 36 retail centres countrywide.
They will be collected by Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Centre (WEEE) who will then disassemble the gadgets and recycle the parts that can be recycled. The rest of the parts will be shipped away to countries that can dispose them off in environmentally friendly ways.
Now you know 🙂
Innovation: Sugar-cane plastic?????
Feasible solution to reduction of plastics from non-renewable sources?
Let me know your thoughts 🙂
via http://infographicsmania.com/sugar-cane-plastic/
NCC Garbage Collection = #fail???
Here’s a little insight into part of the garbage (pun intended) situation in Nairobi, Kenya
Solid Waste Management in Kenya – the role of waste reclaimers by Judy Nyokabi
Solid Waste Management in Kenya – the role of waste reclaimers by Judy Nyokabi
Check out this blogger’s take on the the role of waste reclaimers. Happy Reading!
Reduce, Re-Use, Recycle – The Commentary
By MW
It is interesting that you bring this up. The talk on waste management tweaked my interest to see what the situation is like in Kenya, and I was both appalled by the deplorable state of waste, but also pleasantly amazed at the strides that some people are taking to do their little part in ensuring that waste is reduced, and even converted to valuable items / cash.
For starters, the state of our waste management (or lack thereof). In a word – DEPLORABLE!! And whose fault is it? Let us say it together…….MINE (yes, you are meant to say it out loud and take ownership!). You make instinctive purchases in the shops and supermarkets of things you do not need. You fill your fridge and pantry with food items that you cannot consume in the short period (….because you don’t feel like going back to the shops too soon… Yet, you WILL end up going back seeing as what you have bought in bulk has gone bad in just a few days!!). You have to do spring cleaning every quarter because you have stacked things on top of things and have no idea what is at the bottom of the pile!! Nuff said!!
So, in my house, I do not sort out my trash – in any case, there are people whose job is garbage, so why shouldn’t they be the ones to do it…?? I have rid myself of the trash that once or twice a week, so I have done my part, AND paid for the service (the NIMB syndrome – Not In My Backyard).
Then, on my way to work, I buy some sugarcane, a banana, water melon, water bottle, sweets, yoghurt, ice-cream, etc, and discard what is not useful to me by the wayside. STOP – I know you are saying that the food materials are organic and will decompose and not be a menace – but I now tell you…..it takes over 6 months for these food remnants to decompose, and in the meantime, they are not only an eyesore, but become putrid and smell bad, block drains, and attract vermin that are vectors for diseases. So, do you still think it is ok to discard ad hoc? The water bottles and plastic wrappers gather water and block the drains – water collects, mosquitoes breed, etc. But let me bring this closer to home – it is now raining heavily. When going to work every morning, I not only have to be on the lookout for the time because I do not want to be late, but I also have to contend
with heavy traffic (caused by flooded roads due to poor drainage – read; blocked by my careless littering), and while walking, I have to be on the lookout for manic motorists who will splash water on me, and hope against hope that there are no random holes hidden by the waters that could twist my ankles!! And we have the nerve to complain that the government and service providers are not doing their job, yet whatever little they do, we undo it 10-times over by littering?!?
However, it is not all doom and gloom. Some facts can aid us in pushing us to take the necessary steps to curb unwanted waste (because not all waste is valueless). Anyway, approximately 80% of the trash generated in the home can comfortably fit into the 3Rs, and probably we can even make some money off the trash if we just made that little more effort!! If up to 80% falls into the 3Rs, then how great would it be if we then only have to send 20% of our trash to the dumpsite. Very soon, there will be no need for the dumpsite!!
Let us situate ourselves – plastics, glass items, paper, cloth, etc, can all be reduced, reused or recycled. That pretty much leaves us with only organic matter (which can also be reused as compost) and the occasional electronics (…..I will give you a little secret about these very useful gadgets which become a menace once they have lost their usefulness….).
To even happier thoughts!! I have collated a few companies that are doing us proud in mother Kenya, and making a business out of it!!
- Garbage collectors do good business of ridding our homes and estates of the trash
- There are some new companies that are not only collecting garbage, but also sorting and recycling, and they are minting money from YOUR trash!
The other day I noted a company that has set up an incinerator that gets rid of all excess material that is deemed no longer useful, and also protects us by incinerating hazardous waste like chemicals, medical and industrial waste, etc, by burning them at extremely high temperatures We have heard of those that collect plastics and manufacture extremely durable posts for fencing, etc. In the same tone and breath that we say that plastics are a
huge menace (plastics take over half a century to decompose), imagine how long these posts will last!! AND we will have saved the forests in the process!!!
And, believe it or not, there is a company that now buys off old electronics from you, separates the useful parts, and incinerates the non-usable items!
There are community based youth groups that are doing all the above, and we should do our part to support them – don’t we want to ensure that they do not turn to a life of crime? If not for their sake, then for our own safety?
So, I have done my part of researching and getting pleasantly surprised. Now you do yours.
If you would like to get in touch with any of these good people who are doing wonders in our community (and probably make some money on the side), please contact followthetrash@gmail.com.
See you on the other side of a clean nation!!
Follow the Trash 
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