By Dan Kaburu
It is a normal day for Virginia Nduku, a 53-year-old mother of 3 children at the Dandora landfill, one of the largest landfills in the continent of Africa. On the other side of the dumpsite, Smoke billows from age-old mountains of garbage, filling the blue skies of Dandora estate and surrounding estates where thousands of Nairobians live.
Nduku, like hundreds of other women, men, and youth involved is sorting waste at the site once it has been brought in from all corners of the city, and scavenges through the waste looking for valuable items like plastics for sale. Every arrival of a truck loaded with waste brings together those sorting waste, marabou stork birds, and livestock, each struggling to survive from the waste.
Nduku says that in recent years, a new pollutant is taking over from the single-use plastic bags that littered the environment before it was banned in 2018 – diapers.
“There are a lot of diapers currently at the dumpsite, it is not easy to recycle because they are oily, unlike plastics”, said Virginia Nduku who has been sorting waste at the dumpsite for more than 20 years.
According to Nduku, the challenge is not diapers only but also sanitary towels: “We are exposed to all manner of hazards when sorting waste, you come across a sanitary towel which you can accidentally touch, thus exposing yourself to infections”, added Nduku
Established in 1975 with funding from the World Bank, the dumpsite was deemed full in 2001. Despite this, 24 years later, it continues to receive over 2000 tons of waste every day from estates in and around Nairobi County.
“When we come across sanitary towels, we fear to touch them, feels like once you touch them that day you will not make money,” says Simon Kuria, a young man involved in sorting waste at the site.
Tens of trucks enter the dumpsite each day carrying all manner of unsorted waste from the city. Those involved in waste sorting at the site say that diapers are slowly taking over space at the site.
According to Kuria, the rate at which diapers are being dumped at the site, soon Nairobi residents will view a huge mountain of waste from a distance, given that the diapers are not decomposing and that they are not recyclable. “If there is a way, we could be shown how to recycle diapers, we will be very happy, that means job creation and thus putting money in our pockets, we want to make money”, says Kuria.
According to Eva Muhia, a commissioner at the Nairobi Rivers Commission, accessibility and affordability of diapers and sanitary towels for children and women have almost been achieved, however, there hasn’t been a good framework when it comes to their disposal.
Samuel Koko, chairman of the Dandora dumpsite says to deal with the problem, sanitary towels and diapers should be made from material that can be recycled: “Diapers are just forming mountains here at the site. There should be a way of manufacturing diapers that can be recycled. At the same time, the national or county government should come up with a way of recycling the existing ones. This will create jobs for many youths here who are jobless”, says Koko.
The diapers have become a big challenge to handle to the extent that you will find them dumped in every available bush around towns across the country.
Catherine Mbaisi, Deputy Director in charge of education at the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) confirmed that diaper disposal is a major challenge even to the authority.
“The challenge is real, a lot of diapers are ending up in water sources posing danger to the people. We are however looking into how best to deal with its disposal”, said Mbaisi
Water Pollution
Miles away from the Dandora dumpsite in Kiserian, Kajiado County, and southwest of Nairobi, the only dam that serves surrounding towns is in a sorry state. Heavily polluted water which has turned green is what the communities in Kiserian, Rongai, and other towns in this region rely on.
Upstream of the dam, fresh diapers and sanitary towels are dumped in bags in streams that drain into the dam. With the onset of long rains, pollution of the Kiserian dam is expected to rise from all manner of pollution after a long dry season.
Bushes around the dam have not been spared either. Livestock feeds next to the diapers and later drinks water from the dam. According to NEMA, this exposes them to microplastics found in diapers, which have somehow found their way into the water or pastures that they feed on.
As of June 2021, Kenya had 7 diaper manufacturing companies that were allowed to import raw materials for diaper production, which are largely plastics, to make it affordable.
In 2019, Kilifi County on Kenya’s coast was advocating for a total ban on diapers, saying that it was a major polluter of the ocean.
Recycling
However, in Korogocho, at the banks of Mathare River one of the most polluted rivers in Nairobi, a group of youth who were once involved in crime, drugs and substance abuse is recycling diapers using them to plant trees at a community recreation park.
“We realized that diapers were not recycled and that they were all over in the environment, we came up with an idea of using them to plant trees as a way of recycling,” Joab Oluoch, chair of the group says.
The process involves digging holes, placing a used dipper into the hole then putting a seedling, and latter covering it with the soil. Given that the diaper has human waste, the waste acts as a fertilizer. It also has the ability to retain water for a long time. With that, it helps in water conservation for the project.
“We saw a documentary on YouTube about how diapers are used to grow forests in dry areas due to their ability to retain water for a long, I believe such innovation can also be used to plant trees in dry areas in Kenya as a way of addressing climate change”, says Oluoch.
Others are proposing the use of cotton nappies as it were before the introduction of diapers in Kenya in 1992. But with the new trend of bringing up children, that could be an uphill task.
Focus on Africa
African cities are experiencing a population increase, which is expected to put more pressure on the environment if the issue of sanitation is not well addressed. A recent study shows that In Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria, approximately 960 million disposable diapers are consumed annually, with a significant portion ending up in landfills or being disposed of unsafely, posing environmental risks. In South Africa, 5% of municipal waste is from diapers.
According to the World Economic Forum, every minute, more than 300,000 disposable nappies (or diapers) around the world are incinerated, sent to landfills, or pollute the environment. They are one of the biggest contributors to plastic waste globally.
With the disposal challenge of diapers, there is a need to come up with ways of addressing the issue to save the environment. For now, the environment continues to choke from diapers.
