KCCA LAUNCHES NEW GARBAGE AND CESSPOOL TRUCKS TO IMPROVE SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT

Our City Kampala is 10 garbage compressor trucks richer!! The kind that loads garbage, almost without filling, because it compresses whatever is put in it into a pulp-the modern way of garbage collection leaving none dropping on the road as it’s driven off to the dumpsite!

The Month has ended on a high for the City’s solid waste management with an additional 5 cesspool emptier trucks and 5 tipper truck tractors for collection of silt!

“KCCA has been working to improve the collection rate for solid waste, which has increased from 35% in 2016 to 59% in 2023, through collaborations with the private sector,” revealed Kampala Capital City Authority KCCA Executive Director Ms Dorothy Kisaka. She was speaking at the commissioning event for these new machines at Naguru Katali Primary School grounds in Nakawa Division.

“Our strategy is to ensure every parish in the City has its own garbage collecting truck,” Kisaka said, adding, “as it is now the new equipment will increase the existing fleet of trucks from 12 to 22, with each division having at least four garbage compressor trucks, one skip loader truck, one cesspool emptier and one tipper truck. There are 99 parishes in Kampala.

The city currently generates 2,500 tonnes of waste daily.

"The authority needs a sufficient budgetary vote budget for sanitation and hygiene,” said the Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago who stressed the importance of having a truck for every parish and acknowledged public concerns about the lack of adequate garbage collection tools.

The Lord Mayor, franked by members of his executive committee, Nakawa West Member of Parliament Hon. Joel Ssenyonyi and Nakawa Division Mayor H.W Paul Mugambe; went on to lament about the current low budgetary allocation for City Hygiene and sanitation.

"The President wants the city to be clean," Lukwago said, referencing recent remarks by President Yoweri Museveni while meeting Kampala district NRM leaders. "He (President Museveni) has called for dustbins to be placed every 200 meters, and we are committed to making that happen but we need funding."

KCCA employs over 4000 frontline workers who carry out street sweeping, drainage de-silting and other solid waste management activities. This new equipment is a much needed ‘short-in-the-arm’ in KCCA’s efforts to improve the City’s sanitation.

The Executive Director also revealed KCCA’s plans on the newly acquired landfill in Dundu Mukono. “Recently, we acquired 135 acres of land in Dundu Mukono to setup a waste recycling plant and relieve the Kiteezi Landfill,” she said, adding, “In collaboration with the Ministry of Health, a medical waste handling facility is being setup there, occupying 5 of the 135 acres. This facility is now at roofing stage.”

The grand plan for KCCA at the Dundu recycling and dumping site is to build access roads, fence of the site, install utilities, and build office blocks, waste treatment and at least one working face/landfill cell.

In addition to solid waste management, KCCA is also focusing on sanitation and hygiene. The authority intends to have equitable and universal access to safely managed sanitation and hygiene in the city by 2030.

This will be achieved through the establishment of a robust citywide environmental management coordination, regulation monitoring, and pollution management system, a responsive community-based and public health surveillance and education system, an increase in safely managed municipal waste from 50% to 80% by 2025, and an increase in safely managed faecal sludge from 60% to 80% by 2025.

“The proper collection, transport, safe disposal, and treatment of the faecal sludge is critical. The additional cesspool trucks are expected to contribute significantly to addressing this challenge,” Kisaka said.

The new silt collection trucks launched by KCCA are expected to contribute to improving drainage and deterring flooding in the communities. Flooding is another significant challenge, especially in the rainy seasons, with encroachment on wetlands and indiscriminate littering of garbage and plastic waste among the contributing factors.

The Executive Director of KCCA extended gratitude to the solid waste concessionaires and faecal sludge private emptiers, through which KCCA has been able to deliver solid waste and sanitation services to the city. She also called on the public to practice proper safe sanitation and report any sanitation nuisances to KCCA.

There was unanimity across both the political and technical leadership regarding the welfare and job security of the thousands of frontline workers who confront the city sanitation and hygiene challenge on a daily- majority of them women and youths.