Waste to wealth: Kenyan organization embarks on recycling waste to fertilizer

By Bisola Adeyemo

A Community Based Organization (CBO) in Kenya has embarked on recycling organic waste to make fertilizer and charcoal briquettes and to ensure a healthy environment.

Most of the garbage waste is collected from Kibuye market as a part effort to ensure traders operate in a clean environment.

Simon Meso, the organization’s founder, said waste management remained a big challenge at the market which is being reconstructed to absorb more traders.

“We realized that 80 percent of waste at the market was organic and saw an opportunity to make a living out of it by recycling the waste which was an effective way to manage it,” he said.

“We came up with the initiative to clean up the market and collect the waste – not to dispose of, but to turn it into products that can be reused,” he added.

To come up with the products, he said, they use organic waste like banana leaves, vegetable remains, kitchen refuse, and animal waste, Kenya news agency reports.

The group has brought on board youths to collect the garbage at the market and its environs which at least reduced the level of unemployment among the youths.

Going forward, the group offer training and capacity building to youths and organizations to take up waste management as an income-generating activity.

“We also train students and other organizations on waste management to champion the need to keep the environment clean,” he said.

Joyce Nyawira, one of the founding members of the organization and a business lady at Kibuye market, urged the County Government to support the CBO in the various waste management interventions to keep the city clean.

“Waste management is everyone’s responsibility. We therefore call upon sponsors, donors and anyone who would like to support this great initiative to help attain its full potential,” she reiterated.