US EPA

9730470 

Technical Report 

From sanitary landfill to a dump site: Pugu kinyamwezi community curse in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania 

Yhdego, M 

2017 

English 

10.13140/RG.2.2.27828.04483 

Open dump sites and open waste burning are significant health issues related to waste disposal practices in most towns, cities and rural areas of developing countries. Dumping of solid wastes, for example in Dar es Salaam, has been the norm of disposal for more than 100 years. The impact of current and past waste dumping practices on the environment and on public health have been known since the country’s colonial era. Open dumping of solid waste has been identified as a major health and environmental threat to communities surrounding city dump sites. Pugu Kinyamwezi is the only disposal site that was designed as a sanitary landfill and turned into a dump site prior to its inception. In 2007-09 All dump sites in Dar es Salaam, since the colonial era and after independence, have been established on an ad-hoc basis without due consideration to safe disposal of wastes and the communities who live in adjacent to the areas. Open dump sites in mega cities in Africa, such as Dondora in Nairobi, Keses in Kampala, Koshe in Addis Abeba, and Olusosun in Lagos are well known. Dar es Salaam is not an exception to this trend of waste disposal practice in Africa. This paper raises issues around why Pugu Kinyamwezi, planned as a sanitary landfill in the mid-2000s, turned into a dump site. The paper discusses the EIA process and designing of sanitary landfill engineering at Pugu 2003-4. It presents the situation of the Pugu Kinyamwezi dump site during 2016. The paper highlights the need for long-term sustainable thinking to support community-based waste recycling, reuse, recovery and management strategies, as well as the development of community-centered recycling and delivered educational programs. Such practices would encourage the adoption and implementation of a curricular economy-based waste reduction, re-utilization and recycling activities in these communities, minimizing costly and unsustainable use of solid waste dumping sites in Dar es Salaam and other mega cities on the African continent.