Dr Majale Christine
Country (Nationality)
Kenya
Grantee Title
Areas of research interest: Urban Waste Management; Climate Change
Grantee Description
Home Institution Kenyatta University: Kenya
Host Institution University of South Africa- UNISA: South Africa
Summary of research
An increasingly key focus of waste management activities is to reduce Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. From a climate perspective, the benefits of both re-use and recycling are realized in avoided GHG emissions from waste treatment and disposal, and a GHG benefit in avoided resource extraction and manufacture of new products. No study in East Africa has looked into carbon emissions linked to plastic waste innovations which could in the long run contribute significantly to total GHG emissions. Literature of 2010 records that 10% of the waste generated in Nairobi, Kenya is plastic waste. The informal recycling sector plays a significant, yet largely unrecognized role in plastic waste management. In Kenya,
private industrial actors largely rely on these informal actors to provide them with plastic waste as raw material. This study therefore seeks to assess the contribution of plastic waste innovations (Innovation is here defined as a practice in which actors add value to plastic waste and close the material cycle) by these informal actors to climate change
mitigation efforts. Quantifying the benefits of their activities will bring to the fore the role that such groups can play in the bigger goal of climate change mitigation efforts. Recognizing their role could facilitate friendly waste management policies and a possible platform to lobby for tax reductions directed at waste management activities of such
groups.