In urban areas, especially in the rapid urbanizing cities of the developing world, challenges of Waste Management (WM) are of utmost importance. This has been recognised by most cities, however increased population growth overpowers the capacity of most municipal authorities to provide even the most basic services. Human activities create waste every day and it is the way these wastes are handled, stored, collected and disposed of, which can pose risks to the environment and to public health as a result of operational inefficiencies of services, inadequate poor transport system and limited utilization of the collected waste

Rapid urbanization is taking place especially in low income countries. In 1985, 41% of the world population lived in urban areas, and by 2015 the proportion is projected to rise to 60 % (Schertenleib & Meyer, 1992), whereby 68 % of this urban population will be living in the cities of low-income and lower middle-income countries of which JinJa Municipality fall suit

Jinja municipality produce over 239 tonnage of garbage generated from food stores, feeding centres, food distributions points, slaughter areas, warehouses, agency premises, factories, markets and domestic areas per day but only 45% is collected by the municipality (E2884 JMC). As a result, the uncollected waste, which is often also mixed with human and animal excreta, is dumped indiscriminately in the streets and in drains, so contributing to flooding, breeding of insect and rodent vectors and the spread of diseases.

The general practice in the Municipality has been to transport collected waste from the communities and other divisions to be dumped at Masese landfill. The site though spacious is now filling up and with time the Municipal Council will have to look for an alternative dump site. Continued open dumping will increase negative impacts on the environment including leachate generation, contamination of aquatic systems and soils downstream, continued Green House Gas emissions particularly methane, a short life span for the dumping site and attraction of vermin.

Throughout the developing world it is the urban poor, often in the peri-urban areas, that suffer most from the life-threatening conditions deriving from deficient WM, as municipal authorities tend to allocate their limited financial resources to the richer areas of higher tax yields where citizens with more political pressure reside. Usually as income of the residents increases, part of the wealth is used to avoid exposure to the environmental problems close to home, but as waste generation also increases with increasing wealth, the problems are simply shifted elsewhere. (SANDEC/EAWAG October 1998)

Alliance Water Solutions (AWASO) in collaboration with Jinja Municipal Council is collecting Solid waste under “CLEAN UP” project in peri-urban areas of Masese parish. The PHASE ONE is focusing on proper collection, proper transportation and proper disposal with a lot of difficulties in program ownership, waste sorting, and efficient transportation in preparation for PHASE TWO which focus on waste utilization. See more Details