Conservation lessons from Humburg City for Kenya

 

Colour coded bins at a Hamburg mall in Germany. [Courtesy, XN Iraki]

Economic growth and waste are buddies. I do not recall seeing a dustbin in the countryside where most of us grew up. Not so surprising.

We generated little waste and most of it was organic. Waste was recycled or reused, with plastic cooking oil containers becoming sugar dishes.

Metallic oil containers became “lamps” or toys.  Which boy did not make toys and show off? We did not even know toys could be bought in the supermarket.

And we saw none in the local shops. Supermarkets are a new development. Back in the day, we knew all shopkeepers by name and nicknames.

There was a bold attempt to extend the life cycle of everything. Thanks to a humble background, money was scarce. There was nothing like waste food.

Cows, sheep, cats, dogs or chickens were waiting! Think of potato or banana peelings; that was food
for our domestic animals.

Most of us are still surprised to find dog or cat food on sale.  Fast forward to the urban centres today where waste is a problem. Our slow realisation that the Earth has finite resources and climatic change have changed our views on waste.

It’s now money. The government want us to have more than one bin to separate waste and make recycling easier.

We can borrow from other countries with up to five colour-coded bins. We hope recycling will be taken more seriously and our neighbourhoods will become cleaner and healthier.

Climatic change, going by the spirit of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, and others to come is being taken seriously. We have also taken some bold steps like banning plastic bags.

We need to use more carrots, not just sticks like fines. We need to give incentives to those who recycle, reduce waste and do their small part in mitigating the climatic change.

We hope to swim in the Nairobi River and maybe drink directly from it as we did back in the countryside. Why do we pollute rivers?

I did not see any sold waste floating on the Elbe River in Hamburg, or the Danube in Belgrade, yet these are more industrialised countries.

Why is managing waste such a big issue? Why do Nairobians pollute the rivers and import clean water from the mountains? 

Finally, a head spinner: car brakes, shoes and tyres wear out into small particles and get washed into the rivers and oceans.

We can’t collect that into dustbins. See why we must go beyond dustbins and think without a box?