Africa's Innovative Solution to Waste Management!

There's little doubt that the earth is slowly warming. The temperatures, as they rise are bound to trigger climatic changes and lead to newer patterns and prevalence of a number of infectious diseases. And as the efforts to curb environmental pollution continue at international and individual levels, countries depending on their access to resources try to find ways to tackle pollution and ultimately global warming. The following exemplar from Africa is a testament to the trend.

Engineers from the African nation Kenya have devised ingenious tractor trailer systems to serve as waste management equipment.

The invention called the “Ndume Little Pick-up” has come about as a consequence of partnership between the UN organization “UN-Habitat,” and two engineering firms from Kenya to execute work on the Lake Victoria Water and Sanitation Initiative.

The Indigenous Waste Management Process

The Ndume Little Pick-up has a flat deck body and a very low loading height. It facilitates waste management as its flat body can carry eight bins of waste at a time, which is lifted on or off the pick-up manually.

The plan is to let the little pick-ups serve six of the seven towns in the region. To accomplish the task several pick-ups would collect bins of waste from businesses and residential areas and transport them to large containers or other trailers to be eventually carried to the disposal site. From where a waste treatment plant may take over.

This seems to be a noteworthy partnership between the public and the private sector. Further, not only is the program innovative but is also self sustaining, here's how?

When it's about government funded services in under developed countries, it's often the finances which stymie the efforts. However this system would be self-financing, in the sense that the revenue generated from the service provided would be fed back into the system. Thus providing enough funds for the upkeep and manning of the vehicles, which would also lead to regularity of the service.

While the rich nations try to cut back on carbon emissions using sophisticated technology, the not so rich countries invent their own ways to save the environment.