December 11, 2018

From trash to cash and power in Ethiopian style

located:	Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia
editor:	Bob Koigi

The unprecedented growth and expansion of cities has created a solid waste crisis as existing infrastructure chokes under mammoth trash. Every single year the world produces one billion tonnes of garbage. 

In Africa, the fastest urbanising continent, population explosion and growing consumerism have fueled a rubbish menace, with cities running out of waste disposal spaces, which has fanned disease spread and taken a toll on the environment. Nigeria’s capital Lagos, the most populous city in Africa, produces over 13,000 tonnes of trash each day.

Up to 3,000 tonnes of waste is produced daily in East Africa’s largest city Nairobi, Kenya, whose only legal dumpsite was declared full 20 years ago. The same story is replicated in Uganda’s Kampala, whose dumpsite, which receives some 1,300 tonnes of solid waste daily, is at absolute full capacity. 

The recently launched energy to waste facility in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, has therefore excited the continent with its unique approach to tackling the twin problems of urbanisation; solid waste management and energy access.

The first of its kind in the continent, the facility will incinerate 80 percent of all the city’s waste, estimated at 1,400 tonnes daily, while producing some 185 gigawatts of electricity yearly, enough to power 30 percent of the capital’s households while meeting the EU’s standards on air emissions.

And while the practice has been entrenched in developing countries like France and Germany, the introduction of waste incineration brings to Africa major gains. Key among them is reducing the need for further landfills required to manage waste, cheaper and safe ways of generating electricity and reducing the release of harmful gases like methane to the environment.

With the world’s waste menace projected to grow exponentially in the coming years as cities continue to urbanise and people’s purchasing power rises, innovative ways that transform trash to cash while offering sustainable ways to continue sustaining our electric power hold the promise to habitable cities, and Ethiopia offers a classic case study.