By Correspondent
The closure of the Tudor Manyimbo dumpsite in Mombasa’s Mvita Constituency signals a consequential shift in how the coastal city is rethinking its relationship with waste, public health and urban ecosystems.
For decades, the open dumping site that sat at the heart of Tudor Ward has been a source of pollution to surrounding neighbourhoods, exposing nearby schools and homes to toxic air, foul odours and disease. Children at Busy Bee School, located next to the site, were among the most exposed due to rotting waste.
But in a major shift, Mombasa County has decommissioned the site following the operationalisation of a material recovery facility (MRF), marking a move away from informal waste dumping toward sorting, recycling and safer disposal practices.
County officials say the transition is designed to reduce landfill dependence while recovering value from waste streams that would otherwise contaminate the urban environment.
County Director of Administration and Human Resources in the Department of Environment, John Kuti, confirmed that the Tudor site will no longer function as a waste transfer point.
Under the new system, waste collected from Tudor and surrounding areas will be transported to the county’s recycling and separation facility, where recoverable materials will be processed before the remaining waste is taken to the Mwakirunge landfill. The county says this approach will significantly cut the volume of waste ending up in open landfills.
For residents who lived alongside the dumpsite, the closure represents a long-awaited environmental reprieve.
As Mombasa experiments with material recovery and recycling, the Tudor Manyimbo closure stands as a test case for whether Kenyan cities can move from dumping waste to designing cleaner, more resilient urban environments.
