By NGUMBAO KITHI
MOMBASA; KENYA: Residents of Mombasa County produce approximately more than 80,000 tonnes of solid garbage per day with most of it being discarded on roadsides and housing estates.
According to a report released by the Executive Director of the Environment Trust of Kenya Zaccheus Nderu, the culture of careless garbage disposal exposes people to toxics and damages the environment.
Mr Nderu announced in Mombasa yesterday that this figure is based on projections extracted from a study done ten years ago, which showed that 60,050 tonnes of solid garbage was produced daily then.
Disobey by-laws
Nderu said although there are no studies his projections indicate the volume of garbage produced per day has grown by 20,000 tonnes.
“This (60,050) is a figure for 2002 and today we must be producing more garbage, which is thrown anywhere by the public,” he told The Standard a day after Mombasa Governor Hassan Ali Joho acknowledged that by-laws enacted to curb garbage dumping in Mombasa have been ignored, but warned they will be enforced forthwith.
But Nderu said the residents of Mombasa are to blame for the garbage problems because they disobey disposal by-laws.
The Standard independently verified that there is one dumping ground right inside Mombasa city.
“The environment is our home. We must respect the places we live in or else face the county askaris who must be trained to deal with this crisis,” Nderu said.
Mr Nderu called on the county management to come up with means to stop those who litter on the streets.
