A growing population also intimates that waste generation will also double if not triple from the developments and human activities associated with a growing urban populace.
Waste generation from a global level is expected to double by 2050 with cities and urban centers being the highest contributors to waste generation. Thus, Africa will require measures and policies that will address the future of sustainable waste management in its entirety. In this regard, Africa needs to take stock of their waste management infrastructure and highlight the gaps in existence.
One of the problems that are crosscutting in Africa is the gap in full realization of the potential of recycling of waste and the economic and environmental gains attributed to recycling. In Africa, less than 10% of the countries having recycling plants that operate optimally as well as have infrastructure that can sustain proper waste management from financial to personnel. This chapter outlines the gap in recycling.
The potential of Africa as a continent explicates the need for a robust waste management infrastructure if they are to maintain a clean environment overall.
Africa being the second-largest continent characterized with a growing youthful population and increased economic development, waste generation will be inevitable as a result as of rapid urbanization and population increase.
In Africa, waste management could pose serious threats to humanity if not addressed sustainably due to change in consumption habits leading to high consumption of resources resulting in an increased waste generation. The rapid urbanization of Africa explicates the need for urgency in reviewing and equipping the waste management infrastructure by adopting the 3Rs (Reduce, Re-use, and Recycle) paying more attention on recycling.
The tenet of Recycling comprises of collection and processing of waste into new products with the focus of having zero waste. Recycling equips people with an environmental ethic of avoiding the littering culture and sensitization of how a clean environment should be. The benefit of recycling range from the reduction of pollution and global warming, wealth creation, and ultimately lessens the amount of waste taken to landfills.
Africa’s emergence in recycling is characterized by poverty, unemployment, and socioeconomic needs that arise from the demands of public and private demands especially for those in urban centers and cities. Interestingly, the waste generated in most urban centers and cities in Africa is recyclable waste however only a very small percentage have adopted recycling. Further, recycling is conducted by the informal waste pickers to subsidize their livelihoods from actively recovering valuable resources in the waste to sell to private sector.
Consequently, the use of informal sector to conduct recycling renders waste generated from urban centers and cities unproductive since they lack the capacity and technology to fully recycle. In this regard, it is estimated that approximately half of the waste material generated in Africa remains uncollected within Africa’s cities and towns, where it remains dumped on sidewalks, open fields, storm water drains, and rivers leading to mushrooming dumpsites.
Worth noting is that the primary causes of inadequate waste disposal and management in Africa are envisaged in weak strategic, institutional, and organizational structures which are perpetrated by limited skills that are essential to waste material management; inadequate budgets; feeble legislation; and lack of enforcement necessary for waste management. Additionally, low public awareness, increasing corruption, and conflict lead to political instability in various African countries; and generally a lack of political will to deal with waste material disposal and management more so recycling.
A Guest Editorial