RACE TO SUSTAINABILITY: KENYA’S STEPS TO IMPLEMENTING THE BAMAKO CONVENTION
By Laura Otieno

At the Kisumu County hospital, a heavy cloud of smoke bellows. At the furthest corner, the red-hot flames cast a blanket of heat around the incinerator. A designated worker occasionally opens the door to feed in coloured bags of trash collected from the hospital.

By Viola Kasome

Maurice Ouko watches his two-month-old tilapia dart through the water inside his fish cage on Lake Victoria, moments after feeding time.

Nearby, a small floating house, its door facing the cage, shelters a night guard tasked with protecting the fish from thieves.

For Ouko and other cage fish farmers in Kisumu, the round-the-clock surveillance is a necessary expense as they wait months for their stock to mature and fetch a price at market.

Victoria Musimbi
At Dandora Dumpsite in Nairobi, Duncan Njoroge has survived for 16 years in an environment he describes as “not safe for living.”

“My name is Duncan Njoroge. I am a waste picker at Dandora Dumpsite, where I have lived for more than a decade. It is a miracle that I am still alive,” he says.

Duncan began living at the dumpsite after his mother died. With no support system, he ended up at Dandora, where he survives in makeshift shelters built from nylon papers and pieces of wood, surrounded by piles of plastic waste, household refuse, and scrap metal.

By Pauline Achieng Tom

Just a few kilometers from Wajir town a cloud of smoke, a pungent smell and the sight of Marabou storks feeding on waste welcomes you to Ali Maow village. Inside, lies an open land fill, the smoke filling the air bringing with it an invisible threat that residents say had turned life in their village into a health gamble.

In Summary
Residents in Fort Jesus, Kibera live next to informal dumpsites where waste is burned almost daily, exposing families to toxic smoke.
Youths like Boniface Magetto have developed lifelong respiratory complications believed to be linked to polluted air from burning
plastics and mixed waste.
Community initiative Mtaa Safi collects garbage using wheelbarrows and mikokoteni to reduce dumping and burning despite limited.

At the Kisumu County hospital, a heavy cloud of smoke bellows.
At the furthest corner, the red-hot flames cast a blanket of heat around the incinerator.

A designated worker occasionally opens the door to feed in coloured bags of trash collected from the hospital.
Incineration has been the primary method of medical waste disposal in Kenya. While effective at killing pathogens, traditional incineration has been flagged for releasing greenhouse gases and microplastics into the atmosphere.

By Scovian Lillian

Nairobi, Kenya: In many villages, hazardous waste poses a silent threat, spreading through water after heavy rains, rising from contaminated soil during hot afternoons, or drifting through the air as smoke from burning trash.