Lesson 9
MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE AND
ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH
Lesson learning outcomes
By the end of the lesson you will be able to:
1. Examine sources of Municipal Solid Waste and waste
management strategies
2. Explore the consequences of improper solid waste management,
3. Examine impacts of waste on sustainable development
4. Explain sustainable waste management practices
5. Asses the effects of environmental conditions on health and
strategies of mitigation
Introduction
• Waste are materials which are discarded after use at the end of
their intended lifespan.
• Every human activity generates some type of waste ‘I am
therefore I pollute’ (Hill, 2010).
• Municipal solid waste (MSW) includes all domestic refuse and
nonhazardous waste from commercial and institutional entities .
• Waste is unavoidable in any society;the amounts produced and
management of the same is what is of concern.
Cont…
• The generation and management of solid waste is
important to human health and the wellbeing of the
environment
• Kenya generates an estimated 22,000 tons of waste per
day calculated by assuming an average of per capita
waste generation of 0.5 kilogrammes for a current
population of 45 million both rural and urban translating
to 8million tonnes annually (National waste management
policy,2019)
Amount of waste generated…
• It is estimated that 40% of the waste could be urban.
• Given that urbanization is increasing by 10%, by 2030, the Kenya
urban population will be generating an estimate of about 5.5 Million
tonnes of waste every year
• Past inventories indicate a national average estimate of
• 60% - 70% of waste is organic waste, 20% plastic, 10% paper, 1 % medical waste
and 2% metal.
• Inefficient production processes, low durability of goods, unsustainable
consumption and production patterns lead to excessive generation of
waste.
• as population increases and
rates of production and
consumption increases the
Cont… estimated volumes of waste
generated from households,
industries, agricultural
services, construction, health
care facilities will increase
exponentially
Cont…
• Kenya has made commitments to the environmental
protection.
• Article 42 in the Constitution of Kenya (COK 2010)
acknowledges that every person has the right to a clean
and healthy environment.
Introduction cont.…
• Waste is a resource that can be managed to achieve economic, social and
environmental benefits.
• Addressing the waste management challenge effectively in Kenya is critical to
• delivering on Kenya’s constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment for all,
• advancing the circular economy to create green jobs and wealth from the waste sector, and
• realization of the nation’s sustainable development goals
• Historically waste has ben viewed as a problem and not a resource that can
generate wealth as an economic activity
• If properly managed as a resource, waste recovery and recycling can create new
jobs and attract new investment in a diversified waste sector
Sources of waste
• The main sources of waste are
• households, manufacturing, commerce, health care, agriculture, waste treatment,
construction industry and mining waste.
• all the waste from households, industries and health care facilities can be
referred to as municipal waste and if often unsorted and contaminated.
• This overburdens and pollutes Kenya’s land, air and water resources.
• Despite efforts to encourage reuse, recycling and recovery, the amount of
solid waste generated remains high and appears to be on the increase.
Sources of Municipal Solid Waste
and waste management strategies
Sources of solid waste include
• medical centers,
• food stores,
• feeding centers,
• slaughter houses,
• markets,
• domestic areas,
• institutions,
• food distribution centers.
Solid waste generated include :
• organic waste,
• combustibles such as dried wood,paper ,dried leaves,
• non combustibles such as metals, tin cans, bottles,stones,bulky waste such as
tree branches,tyres,dead animals,hazardous waste such as oil,battery acid.
• medical waste,
• construction waste such as rubble
• broken concrete
• Increased amount of waste is largely as a result of changing lifestyles
including the growing use of disposable products and excessive packaging
Negative impacts of waste
• Waste is one of the most imminent environmental challenges in the growing urban areas in
Kenya today.
• Its management, or lack thereof has major implications to health, environment, economy and the
society at large.
• Lack of good waste management affect negatively the environmental quality indicators such as
aesthetics, ecology and human health.
• Reducing these negative impacts requires best practices in the way waste is generated, stored,
transported and disposed.
• Bad practices with negative impacts to air, water and soil quality need to be stopped,
• When materials are burnt, pollutants are released to the air, water soil and life support systems.
• These negative impacts need to be minimized by introducing best technologies and
environmental practices.
Solid waste management
• Involves all activities and actions required to manage waste
from point of generation to final disposal
• Includes
• Collection
• transportation
• Treatment
• Disposal of waste
• Monitoring and regulation
Managing solid waste
considerations:
• type of waste,
• source of waste
• potential health hazards from waste,
• the volume of the waste generated,
• safe collection methods,
• safe transportation methods and
• safe disposal methods
Key components in the solid waste management
chain:
Solid waste management chain involves
1. waste generation; the point when the material is of no use to the owner and
has to be discarded as waste;
2. Storage: system of keeping materials after they have been discarded and prior
to collection
• factors that determine storage include the size, quantity and distribution of storage
facilities.
3. The third stage is collection which involves waste being picked from storage
• ,different methods are used for this depending on the waste management policies in place .
4. The fourth stage is transportation to the treatment site or to the final disposal
site for incineration or landfilling.
Methods of managing waste
• Landfills
• Incinerarion/combustion
• Recovery /recycling
• Plasma gasification
• Composting
• Waste to energy
• Avoidance/waste minimization
Solid waste management strategies
• In managing waste communities are encouraged to manage waste in
an environmentally sound way and to recover materials and energy.
• Waste management strategies are perceived to be in a hierarchy .
• Top most is pollution prevention (P2) ( source reduction)
• followed by reuse and recycle,
• in third position is treatment which can be by biological, chemical or thermal.
• Treatment serves two purposes to reduce waste volume and to reduce its toxicity.
• Disposal is at the bottom of the hierarchy.
Waste management strategies
• The National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA)
Waste Management Strategy (2015) aims to create a 7R
oriented society
• 7R oriented society
• Reducing, Rethinking, Refusing, Recycling, Reusing, repairing, refilling.
• Focus areas being waste collection, transportation, and
disposal and licensing.
• Nothing is waste until its wasted
Waste management
Sorting waste at point of
generation
Discussion qn
• Using real examples discuss hierarchy of waste
management strategies
Cont…
• Waste anywhere is unpleasant, can be infectious and or
injurious,
• individuals can use their buying power to buy
environmentally preferable products, (buying green )
• these are products and services with lesser impacts on human
health and the environment as compared with others that serve
the same purpose, buying such represents P2of waste
management.
• Environmental awareness gives individuals opportunities
to buy green.
Benefits of waste management
• Better environment free from disease causing germs
• Reduces pollution
• Conserves energy
• Creates employment
Models of waste management
Linear model
• follows the “take-make-dispose”.
• raw materials are collected,
• transformed into products that are used
• Finally they are discarded as waste.
• Value is created by producing and selling as
many products as possible
• Based on the sequence of take (raw material),
make (products), use (consume),dispose
(waste)
• Model is unsustainable for both its resources
consumption and its environmental impact.
R C ULAR
FO R CI
GO
EL
M OD
circular model in solid waste
management
• Circular model is a sustainable alternative to linear(take-make-
dispose)model
• involves reducing waste to a minimum
• Strategies of
• Reducing,
• Reusing,
• Recycling
• Recovering existing materials and products and
• finally disposing the minimum fraction of inert waste(5%).
• Based on the 4R of waste management
4R of waste
management
• Reduce
• Reuse
• Recycle
• Recover
The main principles of circular model of waste
management
• Refuse
• Reduce
• Reuse
• Recycle
• Recover
• Landfill
1.REDUCING
• It is the best method of minimizing waste
generated at source via avoidance.
• By reducing, you stop the problem at
source, making less waste to begin
circulating which means there is less
waste at the end of the cycle.
Reusing
• Reusing means any operation by which products or
components that are not waste are used again for the
same purpose for which they are conceived and in their
current forms.
• The essence of reusing is that it preserves some or all of
the energy and material that went into making an item.
• It can also be referred to as re-purposing.
Recycling
• It is the process of collecting and processing materials
that would otherwise be thrown away as trash and turning
them into new products. For example, recycling plastic
bottles to make buckets.
• Recycling defers from reducing and reusing, in that a new
product is generated from waste.
Recovering
• This is the recovery of waste without any pre-processing.
• For example, waste oils that cannot be refined for reuse in
vehicles can be burnt for energy recovery.
• Recovering the energy from waste oil reduces our
dependence on coal and imported oil.
• This is the last option when waste
cannot be used in any other way.
Usually, this means sending rubbish to
a landfill.
Landfilling
• It is very important to manage residual
solid waste properly.
• Waste not disposed of correctly can
cause damage to health and the
environment.
• When waste is well managed in all the
above processes, only a small
percentage can go to a landfill(about
5%) oftenly termed as inert waste.
Assignment
• Briefly Indicate how you manage waste in your institutions
and /or homes in the format displayed in the table below.
CONCLUSION
• Linear model has become unsuitable as it produces
huge amount of waste that results in pollution.
• need to adopt circular model of waste management
whereby waste from the first stage of consumption is
regarded as a resource for use in subsequent stages
until a minimum inert fraction is left at the end of the
cycle which is safely disposed in a landfill.
Consequences of improper solid waste management
• Improperly disposed waste has negative ecological, economic and social
consequences.
• Environmental consequences include; air pollution, especially when waste is
burnt.
• Waste management problem of non-biodegradable equipment.
• Toxicity and radioactive nature of waste to the human, water, soil and
animals,
• Blockage of water runoff channels, increased amount of waste in the
environment reducing the value of the affected geographical location.
Consequences …
• Economic consequences include
• Investments in complex and expensive environment remediation
technologies.
• The waste if properly disposed would create opportunities for
employment, recycling and reduced extraction of more resources,
failure to manage well results into lost opportunities for such
investments and loss of opportunity for economic growth.
• Opportunities for recycling industries and employment lost.
• Floods demand the use of resources which should be deployed for
growth
Consequences…
Social
• Social consequences include the many health effects (e.g.
lead poisoning and cancerous mercury),
• growth of informal waste disposal centers in the
neighborhood.
• Sustainable utilization of solid waste provides
opportunities to turn waste into wealth, safe the
environmental of negative effects of waste and enhance
livelihoods.
Take away assignment-CAT2
1. Estimate the amount of municipal solid waste of a
particular type that students at Kenyatta university
generate per day,week,month and year;
2. Discuss ways of managing the type of waste in 1 above
3. Establish circumstances that will likely induce the
student community to practice P2,reduce and recycle(i.e
the first and second levels of municipal waste
management hierarchy).
Guidelines for the take away
CAT
• Step 1 design a study to make an inquiry as to the types and amounts
of waste generated and ways of managing the waste a case study for
Kenyatta university
• Develop objectives
• To determine the type and quantities of waste generated
• To explain factors that determine quantiles and type of waste generated
• Develop a list of questions (biodata qns:gender,age,course ,year of study,types
of waste generated,estimate of amounts per day
• Determine who will be your respondents and the number (sample size)
• Sample halls of residence (at least 1 for men and 1 for women
Step 2
• Carry out a survey to interview students in the halls of
residence as
• to the wastes generated to determine the type and amounts
• What they think can be done for them to prevent generation of
waste ,reuse or recycle the waste generated
Step three
• Analyse the results to
• Determine the types and amounts
• Show factors that determine quantiles and type of waste
generated
• Establish circumstances that will likely induce the student
community to practice P2,reduce and recycle(i.e the first and
second levels of municipal waste management hierarchy).
Step 4
• Write a report
• A paragraph explaining what is meant by waste management cite authors
(APA style)
• Objectives of the study
• Sample size used (numbers intervied)
• Methods used to collect data/information
• Results expressed in percentages-quantities,types of waste
• Explain ways to use to prevent excessive generation of waste
• Conclusion to giving summary of findings and your recommendations
Effects of environmental problems on human
health and the mitigation measures
• Environmental health is concerned with preventing
disease, death and disability by reducing exposure to
adverse environmental conditions and promoting
behavioral change (Fisher, etal. 2018).
• It focuses on taping resources inside and outside the
health care system to help improve health outcomes.
environmental conditions and the resultant possible
health outcomes include:
• Inadequate water quality and quantity could result to diarrheas,water
related diseases such schistomiasis,dengue
fever,malaria,typhoid,cholera
• Improper water resource management including poor drainage could
result to vector related diseases such as malaria
• Crowded housing and poor ventilation of smoke could result to acute
and chronic respiratory diseases including lung cancer
• Exposure to vehicular and industrial air pollution could result to
respiratory diseases ,some cancers and loss of IQ especially for children
Cont…
• Exposure to naturally occurring toxic substances could result to
poisoning from e.g. arsenic,managanese and fluorides
• Natural resource degradation like landslides results to injury and death
• Climate change results to extreme heat/cold,storms,floods,fires,spread
of vectorborne diseases, aggravation of respiratory diseases, population
dislocation, water pollution among other adverse effects
• Ozone layer depletion resulting to skin cancers,cataracts,compromised
food production among others
Mitigation measures
• The solutions to environmental health issues depend on individual, community,
national and county governments.
• making good lifestyle choices such as not to smoke, to practice safe sex, to follow a
healthy diet and to protect our eyes and skin from the sun, preventing air, water, soil
and nose pollution, provision of clean drinking water,
• Involving local communities in managing human surroundings to minimize disease
causing vectors, conservation of biodiversity which control spread of diseases,
regular exercise for urban dwellers for release of stress,
• improving working environment to minimize health hazards,
• promoting activities that lead to healthy environment and
• promoting environmental sanitation through awareness programmes.
