Africa-Press – Kenya. Kenya generates an estimated 22,000 tonnes of waste per day translating to eight million tonnes annually, the government announced on Monday.
Principal Secretary in the State Department for Environment and Climate Change Festus Ng’eno said in a statement 40 per cent of the waste is generated in urban areas.
Ng’eno said that given that urbanisation is increasing by 10 per cent, by 2030, the Kenya urban population will be generating an estimated 5.5 million tonnes of waste annually.
He said past scientific inventories estimate that 60 per cent of waste generated is organic, 30 per cent is recyclable and 10 per cent is others.
“Inefficient production processes, low durability of goods, unsustainable consumption and production patterns lead to excessive generation of waste,” the PS said.
He said this implies that there exists a huge space for circularity and sustainable consumption and production to extract maximum value from waste for job and wealth creation.
Kenya’s waste management approach has been linear where all waste is mixed and destined for dumpsites, the PS said.
He said discarded products which fill the country’s dumpsites release methane as products decompose.
The products and packaging disposed of as waste, the PS noted, have a life cycle from extraction, manufacturing, distribution, use and disposal and at each stage, greenhouse gases are released indirectly or directly into the atmosphere thus affecting the global climate.
In Kenya, he said, waste process emissions account for less than 1 per cent of overall emissions at an average annual rate of 6.7 per cent between 1995 and 2015.
Waste prevention, reuse and recycling offer significant potential for decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, he said.
“The National Climate Change Action Plan 2018-2022 provides concrete actions to be taken by all sectors to mitigate and adapt to climate change and is Kenya’s implementation tool for Kenya Nationally Determined Contributions 2030,” the PS said.
He said that Kenya’s updated NDC (2020) intends to reduce the country’s GHG emissions to over 32 per cent by mainstreaming the circular economy as an important tool in the fight against climate change and the attainment of sustainable development goals.
The PS said the government has emphasised the deployment of renewable energy, energy and water efficiency, promotion of industrial symbiosis, pollution control and sustainable waste management, climate smart agriculture and finally the integration of nature-based solutions.
Further, in its journey to carbon neutrality, Kenya is developing its long-term Greenhouse Gas Emission Strategy (2050) which will enhance the scope of circular economy interventions in all sectors, Ngeno said.
He said the ministry also spearheaded the development of the Sustainable Waste Management Policy 2021 and the SWM Act 2022 which emphasises the transition of waste management from a linear to a circular approach.
“To provide further impetus in the management of manufactured products and packaging, the ministry has also finalised the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations, 2023 emphasising a shift towards the implementation of the polluter pay principle where producers have to internalise waste as a cost rather than an external consequence,” the PS added.
The ministry has also developed a Green Public Procurement Framework, 2021 which intends to incentivise the private sector’s transition to green products and services.
“At the global level, the United Nations Environment Assembly adopted resolution 5/11 on Enhancing Circular Economy as a Contribution to achieving sustainable consumption and production,” Ng’eno said.
He said a similar emphasis on circular economy forms part of the ongoing negotiations on the global treaty on plastics pollution including in the marine environment.
The PS said at the global level circular economy concept, the reuse aspect could especially be misused and lead to dumping of substandard items in developing countries.
He noted that much remains to be done to tap the whole potential of the circular economic opportunities for job creation and sustainable resource use.
Ng’eno said he has been informed that similar meetings are held in other countries as the build-up to the global meeting which was held recently in Helsinki, Finland.
“Our formal circular economy journey can be traced to the Kenya Green Economy Assessment Report of 2014 which demonstrated that pursuing a green economy scenario will result in faster economic growth projecting that by 2030, the gross domestic product could be 12 per cent higher by taking a green growth pathway compared with continuing a business-as-usual scenario,” he said.
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