Urbanization is increasingly expanding in all parts of Ethiopia. More and more lands previously used for agriculture are committed for these expansions. This has brought an increase in volume of urban waste at alarming rate, which AEEG has decided to work on it at a grass-root level since 2008.
The solid waste management (SWM) was a demand driven project proposed by members of AEEG and backed up by stake holder’s in order to support the awareness creation, enhance capacity of stakeholders, site workers and pre-waste collectors as well as conducting scientific study back up on the compost quality improvement and process control on sustainable solid waste management in Addis Ababa through a practical pilot plant established at Kolfe-keranyo Sub-city of Addis Ababa.
The project was elapsed for 5 years and was done in collaboration with Addis Ababa Cleansing Management Agency (AA-CMA), Ministry of Urban Development and Construction (MUDC), Kolfe Keranyo Sub City Administration, Kolfe Keranyo Solid Waste Management Bureau with financial support by DAAD, DED-GiZ, BOKU University of Austria.
Major activities and achievements: 1) Over 500 experts and interested professionals from stakeholder organisations from various parts of the country were trained. Moreover, households, waste collectors, and school communities have been trained. Our understanding is that this along other efforts has brought about a big improvement. 2) Source-separated waste collection at household (HH) level was introduced and implemented. 3) Aerobic composting method adopted from Guinea (BOKU-University Conakry project) was used as a best practice for this project on 1200 Kg – 1500 Kg of household waste used to be delivered weekly at the site through the collectors, which were found 90-95% organic. 4) By producing compost from organic waste as a natural resource rather than directing the waste to the landfills, the value of waste has been redefined and an integrated approach of composting, soil fertility, nutrition and food security was demonstrated. 5) Related to quality control, testing characterisation of organic content (Loss on Ignition, Organic Carbon); rotting status (pH-Value, Ammonia-N, Nitrate-N); and nutrients (Nitrogen, total phosphorous, Calcium, Potassium, Sodium, Magnesium, plant available compounds) has been made and verified production attained European standards. The know-how of quality production and testing methodologies was transferred to the trainees through theoretical and practical trainings