By E, KNA
Kenyan businesses have been urged to embrace green and circular practices to reduce greenhouse emissions, biodiversity loss and pollution and help the country achieve sustainable development.
The Center for Environment, Justice and Development-Kenya (CEJAD-K) Executive Director Mr Griffins Ochieng said there was need for businesses and industries to change their corporate models to cut costs, reduce risks and losses, provide value to their clients, avert environmental harm and ensure realization of the country’s commitments towards carbon dioxide emissions reduction.
He said adopting a circular economy, which prioritizes reuse, repair, recycling, and extended product life cycles, was essential for national development and environmental sustainability.
The Executive Director noted that transitioning to a circular economy involved tapping into the capacities of all players including the private and public sectors as well as communities.
Ochieng elaborated that the circular economy model prioritizes the minimization of waste by reusing, recycling and repurposing materials to create a closed-loop system where one person’s waste is someone else’s raw material.
He said CEJAD-K was working with state agencies, donors and the private sector to shore up campaigns towards creating a country that generates income from waste and were spearheading the initiative of the circular economy model emphasizing on the importance of reducing, reusing and recycling resources.
Speaking in Nakuru during a sensitization forum on effective, extended producer responsibility systems and implementation of sustainable laws to end plastic pollution, the Executive Director pointed out that with the circular economy, the country could drive the optimization of resources, reduce the consumption of raw materials, and recover waste by recycling or giving it a second life as a new product.
Ochieng observed that sustainable waste management will contribute towards checking climate change adding that sustainable waste management practices had the capacity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent and that waste could also be turned into useful raw materials that could make stationery, fabrics and other value-added products.
The event was organised by CEJAD-K, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and Electronic Waste Responsibility Organization of Kenya (EWOK).
The executive Director pointed out that Kenya’s rapidly growing population and urbanization was capable of generating immense volumes of waste, posing serious risks to human health and the environment, if not well managed.
Currently, each citizen produces an average of 0.5kgs of waste daily, totaling approximately 27,500 tonnes nationwide, of which 60 per cent is reportedly mismanaged, the Executive Director observed.
He highlighted the dangers of plastic pollution and e-waste, emphasizing that poorly managed waste aggravates environmental degradation and threatens biodiversity.
Ochieng said Kenya’s current linear economic model— “take, make, dispose”—was resource-intensive, environmentally unsustainable and left the economy vulnerable to external shocks, including global price fluctuations and climate variability.
He said adopting a circular economy, which prioritizes reuse, repair, recycling, and extended product life cycles, is essential for national development and environmental sustainability and called on citizens to take responsibility for waste management, stressing that while the government can provide policies and infrastructure, environmental stewardship was a collective obligation.
He said waste should be treated as a valuable resource rather than a burden and underscored the importance of multi-sector collaboration in addressing Kenya’s waste management crisis.
“We currently have new laws that came into place in 2022 around waste management and also the regulations on extended producer responsibility,” Mr Ochieng stated.
The laws, he added were intended to transition Kenya from a linear model for waste management where we produce and dump, to a more circular economy model where we minimize waste generation and also promote recycling so that we take the waste product from the environment.
Ochieng observed that from innovating waste management through the 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle), Kenya can resolve not only the challenge, but also create employment, promote economic growth, improve health and ecosystems, which in turn contributes to a happier, greener and healthier country.
At CEJAD-K, he affirmed they were focused on creating public understanding of both visible plastic pollution and the “invisible pollution” from hazardous chemicals used in some plastic products. He also emphasized the critical role of waste pickers in waste management.
“Leaving no one behind, as we call it in the just transition system, is that they need to be part and parcel of this new shift in waste management,” he said.
He said that generation of power from waste has the potential of reducing environmental degradation and increasing employment opportunities.
Ochieng observed that effective waste management is key to public health, environmental conservation, climate resilience, and the development of a circular economy.
“By investing in modern solid waste disposal, wastewater treatment, responsible waste management policies, and circular economy initiatives, we will be firmly on the path to creating a more sustainable future that benefits both people and the planet,” he said.
Through such initiatives we will be committed to guaranteeing proper waste management which curbs pollution, conserves resources and improves public health by reducing exposure to hazardous materials. Beyond environmental conservation, proper wastewater management plays a crucial role in economic growth. It prevents pollution in rivers, lakes, and oceans, safeguarding aquatic ecosystems, the official elaborated.
He observed that rapid urbanization, improved economic situation and industrialization had transformed solid waste management into one of the greatest challenges facing major urban centres in Kenya.
This, he said calls for Kenya to reduce, reuse and recycle waste. Proper sanitation programmes including adequate landfill sites can help our country to improve the current state of solid waste management and save money. We must urgently exploit the energy potential stored in waste through major available waste-to-energy technologies and also strategic action plan for implementation of these technologies.
He stressed the need for industries to adopt innovative technologies and approaches that change the way we think about, use and treat solid, liquid, domestic, industrial and commercial waste adding that lack of adequate waste management had resulted in excessive air, soil and water pollution, threatening public health, ecosystems and biodiversity, as well as accumulating immense quantities of waste in Kenya’s waterbodies.
