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Plans to turn Dandora dumpsite into recreational park well on course

By Collins Omulo October 28th, 2019 2 min read

Nairobi County’s largest dumpsite, Dandora dumpsite, may soon cease to exist as City Hall plans to turn it into a recreational park.

This comes after the county government said that plans are underway to eventually decommission the dumpsite as a way of achieving sustainable waste management in the capital city.

METHANE GAS

Nairobi County Environment Executive Veska Kangogo said Dandora dumpsite will in the meantime continue receiving residual waste but will be turned into a park once all the methane gas emanating from the decomposing waste at the site is done with.

Ms Kangogo said the plan is part of the county’s wider plans to re-engineer dumpsites in the county aimed at methane gas collection intended for electricity generation.

This is in line with the county government’s plan to set up methane gas generation plant at the dumpsite to turn most of the residual wastes at the dumpsite into the gas that will be used to power electricity generating plants.

“The Dandora dumpsite will be operational to receive residual waste; however, the dumpsite will be eventually decommissioned in an environmentally sound manner and eventually turned into a park once all the methane gas emanating from the decomposition waste is fully flared,” said Ms Kangogo.

According to the county’s Annual Development Plan for financial year 2020/2021, City Hall has proposed two sites located in Kamukunji and Langata sub-Counties as the new landfill sites to collect waste generated in Nairobi that cannot be recycled as the county government phases out Dandora dumpsite.

Last year, City Hall said it had set aside Sh20 million to build two transfer stations– a point where you collect garbage and sort it out for what to reuse or throw away – to help in sorting out garbage collected in the county.

WASTE MANAGEMENT

“The methane gas will be generated out of the organic waste mainly from the markets. The residual waste that cannot be recycled will be sent to the landfill. The landfill gas generation will help reduce our greenhouse gases footprint as well enable us manage sustainably our organic fraction of the waste. Electricity generation is not the main focus, rather sustainable waste management,” she said.

The new sites are near human settlements, nevertheless, the Environment executive explained that the county government plans to undertake a feasibility study that will recommend a Resettlement Action Plan for households likely to be affected.

Dandora dumpsite is reeling under the weight of excessive solid waste holding over 1.8 million tons of waste against an expected capacity of 500, 000 tons.

More than 2, 500 tonnes of waste is deposited at the dumpsite daily with the county able to collect only 1, 000 tons of garbage daily.

Plans by the county government to set a power generating plant at the dumpsite has been in the offing for years since the regime of former Governor Evans Kidero but nothing much has really come out of the plans.

Last year, Governor Mike Sonko said that 21 companies had made it to the financial evaluation stage – out of the 46 companies that expressed interest in the power plant project – after successfully making it through the technical evaluation stage.

This also failed to proceed to any tangible conclusion.