In the urban slums of Kampala, the Ugandan capital, the issue of plastic dumping is of growing concern. The irregularity of solid waste collection by the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) in many poor neighbourhoods leads people to dispose of their plastic bags and bottles on illegal sites. As a result of this inadequate service, around 51 per cent of the city’s waste is left uncollected, eventually lining the streets, and wreaking environmental havoc.

The environmental consequences of illegal waste disposal are devastating: plastics are non-biodegradable, so they contaminate soils, with knock-on effects for food production; plastic bottles block drainage channels, causing floods and thus higher incidences of diseases such as malaria and cholera; and plastic bags find their way to natural water bodies, such as Lake Victoria, killing aquatic life.

However, in June 2010, the international charity, Living Earth Foundation (LEF) decided to intervene. With €500,000 (£427,000) of European Commission funding (a further €1 million (£854,000) is allocated for other Living Earth projects in Cameroon and Nigeria), the charity introduced its four-year ‘Waste to Wealth’ project to Kampala, in partnership with local NGO, Living Earth Uganda (LEU).

Speaking to Resource, Lios McGilchrist, Programme Manager for LEF, describes the project’s ‘tri-sector’ aims of: improving environmental sanitation services; forming micro-level public-private partnerships between local governments and social enterprises; and generating income from the provision of recycling and reuse services.

“We realised that, in poor areas, waste collection services were largely absent and that, at the same time, waste management – both collection and recycling – represented potentially lucrative sectors for poor people’s businesses”, says McGilchrist.

’Waste to Wealth’ is currently underway in Kampala City and the neighbouring district of Nansana, which are both plagued with poor environmental sanitation, coupled with the overarching obstacle of extreme and widespread poverty.

Without replacing government’s role, the project aims to help join the necessary components needed to produce a viable waste management solution. McGilchrist explains: “Living Earth has the legitimacy and the credibility to bring together different stakeholders – government, but also formal and informal private sector and civil society – to develop collaborative solutions to waste management problems.”

And the scheme’s efforts go beyond setting up this ‘tri-sector approach’; the provision of functional training is improving business success and incomes, while the provision of the necessary tools is initiating regular community clean-ups. To date, individuals have received training in creating charcoal briquettes from organic waste, composting, recycling plastic, and weaving waste plastic bags into saleable products.

Indeed, there is plentiful evidence that the project is making solid progress towards its aim, in line with the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of reducing world poverty by 50 per cent by 2015 (MDG 1) and improving the lives of slum dwellers through environmental sustainability (MDG 7).

For instance, some social enterprises involved in the scheme are seeing their profits increase by as much as 20-30 per cent. Simultaneously, communities and local councils are reporting an improvement in neighbourhood appearances, fewer cases of flooding and subsequent water-borne diseases, greater awareness of people’s rights to a clean and healthy environment, and the importance of reusing materials.

McGilchrist points to the story of William Tibemanya (pictured, left) as an example of the project’s success; Tibemanya, once a casual worker of KCCA, is now the Chief Executive and Managing Director of Uganda Waste Collectors and Recyclers Ltd.

Having started off by collecting 100 kilogrammes (kg) of plastic waste per week (with the help of four others), Tibemanya now collects 15-18 tonnes of plastic per month, employs 79 casual workers and has trained over 200 plastic waste collectors. With the 6.5-9 million shillings (£1,591-£2,203) he earns each month, he can afford to venture into other businesses, shelter his home and educate his children.

Nonetheless, there is still work to be done; many have struggled to develop a profitable business from waste recycling due to lack of capital and inadequate business skills.

According to McGilchrist, one of the greatest challenges to achieving the aims of the project is “the restructuring of local governance structures in Kampala, with a corresponding change of staff and government mandates across the city”, along with the amount of time it takes to change attitudes and behaviours.

But Living Earth is confident it will achieve its aims by the time it winds down, and external EC funding ceases, in 2014: “The project approach has been to build the capacity of community leaders, small businesses and local government to develop solutions to their waste management problems – the capacity will remain when the project ends, and so the work started by the project will continue beyond 2014”, McGilchrist says.

“Living Earth will continue to work on Uganda, building on the lessons learned from this project and looking to expand it to other areas of the country, as well as developing new programmes of work in the emerging energy sector.”

As for the organisation’s future aims, McGilchrist concludes: “Key sectors that we’re watching are both the development of the briquettes sector as it tries to capture the charcoal market in Uganda, and the emerging problem of electronic waste in Africa.”