By JOHNSON KANAMUGIRE

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Rwanda is banking on a partnership with Luxembourg to address the crisis arising from poor disposal of solid and hazardous waste generated across its fast-expanding cities.

The environment regulator, for example, indicates that more than 90 percent of over 500 tonnes of solid waste collected daily across Kigali end up in open dumping sites.

Besides, lack of waste source separation and the widespread collect-and-dump practices leave even secondary cities grappling with huge amounts of municipal waste.

Details obtained by Rwanda Today show that over the course of three years a waste-to-resources project under a partnership with the government of Luxembourg could see an estimated Rwf4.7 billion (€4 million) to Rwf23.6 billion (€20 million) invested in setting up installations allowing valorization of waste at Kigali’s municipal landfill of Nduba, including a framework to enable the separation of organic and plastic waste at source.

The Ministry of Environment also indicates that under the project, whose pilot was launched on August 24, more investment will go into improving the collection rate and management of electronic waste in Kigali and secondary cities.

Minister of Environment Jeanne d’Arc Mujawamariya said the memorandum of understanding signed between the two countries entails cooperation and technology transfer to facilitate specialised waste treatment and recycling at the Nduba landfill in a pilot phase.

“We are of the view that no waste should be wasted since there is potential to use it to generate energy, fertiliser, and construction materials, among other things. That’s what we want to be done in Kigali in a pilot phase and scaled up to other cities,” she said.

Kigali City authorities say studies needed to help determine the exact volumes and nature of waste reaching the landfill.

Kigali City Mayor Pudence Rubingisa says the data was key to guide investments and formulation of business models around treatment.

So far official data suggests that waste entering landfill sites in the City of Kigali has increased from 141.38 tonnes per year in 2006 to 495.76 tonnes in 2015 when the population was estimated at about one million.

However, actors in the waste sector suggest that volumes increased significantly to between 500 tonnes to 1,000 tonnes with the rise in Kigali population estimated at over 1.6 million today.

Paulin Buregeya, a waste operator already diverting recyclable materials at a separate site in Kamonyi for low scale valorisation told Rwanda Today that addressing the Kigali waste crisis calls for dedicated programmes with support and incentives targeting every stage of the waste value chain namely the waste generators, collectors, recyclers and end-users.

“Sorting waste at source has been in our laws for a long time but has remained impractical because it makes no sense to implement it when the collector will have to mix everything in his fleet destined for the dumping site which also possesses no amenities for sorted waste disposal,” he said.

“The project will have to work on all these aspects of the value chain. Targeting one or a few of them has always ended up in failure.”