Cleaning up Nyanama and giving livelihoods to people

Storie 1:

As part of the 12 story series, Waste to Green (WTG) will introduce you to various communities that they are working with. Each month we intend to feature a small town or community to showcase the work that WTG is undertaking in Uganda as the company strives towards its vision to better lives through transforming mind-sets from burying waste to utilizing waste as a resource thus eliminating the need for landfills. This month we feature a small community on the outskirts of Kampala working together with WTG to improve their environment.

Nyanama is a small town off Kampala-Entebbe road in Mutundwe Parish, Rubaga Division. Nyanama is one of Kampala suburbs that has the potential of developing given its proximity to town but to date this has eluded it. It has been slow to develop due to limited financial resources on the one hand but also land owners are unwilling to sell their land. As such infrastructure such as access roads are bad cutting off the area from many of the developments that could be accessed due to the town’s location.

But these negatives did not stop Waste to Green as a matter of fact they spurred the people on. This is the type of community that aligns with Waste to Green’s vision. Around October 2017, WTG learnt that there were people that were trying to clean up their community through one of our employee’s. They had made contact with people within this community who were involved in collecting plastic and selling it to the recyclers.

Figure 1: A photo of a dump site in Uganda. Source: External

Though this is a hard and somewhat dirty job (normally done by impoverished people from the slams), these people were willing to go out and collect plastic material from gutters, road sides, unofficial dump sites etc. in order to make a living.

Figure 2: Photo of plastic collection Area. Source WTG

They would sell this material to the bigger local merchant with larger storage areas who would in turn would sell this to the recycler. This material ends up in people’s compounds just as the one shown Figure 2.

When WTG first made contact with this community, it was difficult to create good connections. Some of the things the writer has learnt from being in operation in Uganda is that people are inherently stubborn, hard or naïve negotiators and due to the level of education find it difficult to recognize a business opportunity. We sensed that this was a good community and we could do something to better improve lives and were persistent with our effort.

Figure 3: WTG workers standing in the middle of material that needs to be packed as the owner tries to gather material. Source: WTG

Three weeks after our initial contact WTG managed to removed material from this one dealer in this community. It has turned out that this was a good contact to make and a profitable relationship between this community and WTG. Waste to Green has now two contacts in this community and able to collect material from this material from these on a weekly basis.

Some would see this as a purely business transaction but for WTG, it would be difficult not to relay the social impact of this project to this community, therefore, the figure below shows some of the highlights from this community.

11000 kilograms:

By december WTG had removed over 10 tons from this community.

Figure 4: Packaging of plastic by WTG skilled labourers of material before weighing and loading. Source: WTG

10

Every time WTG goes into such community, it requires a number of people to work together to ensure that the daily operations run smoothly. On average, on such field visit WTG offers employment opportunities to around 10 people.

Figure 5: Labourers for the day helping with the operation. Source: WTG

Figure 6: An early start for the people in this community. Source: WTG

The day normally starts early most of the time before sunrise.

Figure 7: A Pile of plastic ready for packaging. Source: WTG

Packing starts as soon as the owner of the compound opens the doors. The material is normally placed in piles as some of the merchants do not have sacks or enough nets to package all the plastic material received from the field. It is required to be transferred to nets or bags for proper weighing before transportation.

Figure 8: The plastic merchant assisted by labourers to place plastic material in nets for weighing. Source WTG

Figure 9: Packing of plastics. Source WTG

By mid-morning the packing is finished and the material is waiting weighing and loading. The day completes with transportation of this material to our storage and sorting area. This article has shown that in a society like this, circumstances have forced people to make a living from the same thing that most Ugandans still see as rubbish and throw it wherever is easiest to them.

We as Waste to Green are hoping that actions like these will inspire communities as well as a generation to change their mind-sets about the way we see waste and therefore act to change our habits.

One can say that this selfless act of throwing rubbish all over has created employment to people in communities like these and so this is a good thing. Though WTG also sees that one man’s dirt is another’s living, we still hope that in time people are informed about the various impact of the materials to the environment and change their habits.

As we strive towards a greener and cleaner community, we hope that this example has inspired you to do something. We would encourage you to share this story, leave a message and/or also like our facebook page.