Efforts to employ innovation in the management of waste disposal in Senegal got a positive nod with the government’s decision to promote waste recovery in the country. The project which will help in curbing excessive waste and mitigate pollution will see to the construction of a recovery factory in Senegal’s Kaolack region. Government sources say it will modernize waste management in this region of central-western Senegal.

According to Senegal’s Minister of Urbanism, Housing and Hygiene, the project targets to ensure that the country achieves a zero-waste status, thus the reason behind tagging it a “Zero Waste” project. This is one of the innovative initiatives of President Macky Sall of Senegal which forms part of a bigger project to help to mobilize the Senegalese people behind a strategy of social transformation, public hygiene, and cleanliness.

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Within the framework of this new project, a monitoring and awareness unit of the Senegalese Ministry of Urbanism will stay for 15 days in Kaolack, to exchange and share information on “improving the living environment of the population”. The “zero waste” operation is in line with the “Cleaning day” program launched by the President on January 4, 2020. Within this framework, 250 palm trees and a hundred flower boxes have been set up in several communes in the Kaolack region. The administrative center of the region has a bad reputation, often described as “the dirtiest city in the country”.

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It is in this context that the Metropolitan Agency for Household Waste (Syctom) in Île-de-France and the European Union (EU) have been supporting waste recovery in Senegal for several years. For example, the Training and Awareness Project on Sorting and Collection of Household Waste was launched and subsidized to the tune of 35 million CFA francs (€52,468) by Syctom (also Mixed Central Union for the Treatment of Household Waste) in Guédiawaye, in the suburbs of Dakar in 2015. It will eventually make it possible to train 800 to 1,000 children in 10 schools on basic hygiene and the importance of selective sorting and waste collection. At least 15 sports and cultural associations and women’s groups will be sensitized.

The IWWA project “Integrated waste management in western Africa”, financed by the European Union (EU), has also addressed the issue of solid waste management in Senegal. The project has strengthened formal and informal networks in the domain of waste management and the implementation of measures to positively influence solid waste management in the country.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry