Bio Vision Africa trains city waste pickers
Speaking at the training, Geoffrey Kamese, the executive director of Bio Vision Africa, encouraged the waste pickers to be united and have one advocacy voice for their trade to be respected and well-regulated. We need a voice that makes your work admirable, he said.
Every day, every home and every business produces an assortment of waste products that are released into our environment. Oftentimes, the waste is not properly disposed of but instead littered into the environment. These wastes, when not well managed can be a danger.
This improper disposal of waste products has given birth to a new trade that has come to be called waste pickers. These waste pickers are people who collect the waste, sort them and sell them off to people who are in the recycling business.
Waste picking as a business is becoming recruitive but it has its own associated healthy and environmental risks. To avert these risks, Bio Vision Africa, with a focus on Single-Use Plastics, is training waste pickers equipping them with skills and knowledge to protect the environment.
The first such training targeted waste pickers in Kampala Metropolitan Area It took place at Nob View Hotel in Kampala on 8th December 2022. The training was attended by waste pickers from Kitezi Landfil, Luzira-Kilombe Landfil and Bukasa Landfil.
Speaking at the training, Geoffrey Kamese, the executive director of Bio Vision Africa, encouraged the waste pickers to be united and have one advocacy voice for their trade to be respected and well-regulated. We need a voice that makes your work admirable, he said.
Kamese said when the waste pickers are united; they can engage authorities like Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) and discuss issues of safety and health. “We should have a change in the way we do things. We can’t keep doing things as usual. It starts with you,” he told the trainees.
He stated that with the training, Bio Vision Africa has started building the capacity of waste pickers. Twelve waste pickers from within Kampala were trained and more, in the coming month, are going to be trained.
Kamese notes that waste pickers play an important role in putting the waste out of the environment to good use; turning it into raw materials for recycling industries.
Luke Mugerwa, a waste picker and the chairperson of Kitezi Landfil told Charmar News that some of the challenges they face are bad weather, hazardous wastes and fluctuating prices of wastes.
Rain distorts the quality of waste while wastes like used gloves, syringes and sharp metals are a risk to their life.
He said that while the rest of the people look at waste as rubbish, they look at it as money. He said waste is wealth.
Edward Nyakahuma of Bio Vision Africa noted that Uganda lacks adequate formal waste management systems. For example, there is a lack of waste sorting culture at the household level, he said.
He said that through collaborations with international partners like unwaste.io, they are advocating for proper waste management especially Single Use Plastics like mineral water bottles, soda bottles and the like.
