Kang’oki Landfill Project selected to showcase innovation at the WB’s funded Exhibition.

Some of the officials who had visited the Kang'oki landfill project who include the county's Environment CEC Esther Njuguna (extreme left), World Bank representative Jolly Dusabe (in yellow), Deputy Governor Gerald Githinji and the MD Alternative Energy Systems Ltd Mr. Rajesh Kent among others.

The Kang’oki Semi-aerobic Landfill in Thika has won Kiambu County a slot at the two-day innovations forum in Nairobi where select counties showcase innovations developed to offer solutions to challenges facing them in the fields of Agribusiness, Agriculture, skills development and waste management among others since the onset of devolution.

The Council of Governors (CoG), in partnership with the World Bank will from next month host the conference dubbed ‘Innovations and Learning forum’ scheduled for the 15^th to 17^th of June. In the exhibition, counties exchange notes with other counties, showcase their innovations to potential partners and donors as well as get a chance to learn how others tackled the challenges that faced their respective counties.

Speaking while guiding World Bank consultants and CoG representatives on a tour of the facility, Deputy Governor Gerald Githinji said the facility, a first in Africa, has so far helped in managing industrial and domestic waste management problem through converting solid waste into biodegradable products.

“When waste material is brought in, some hired workers sort out the different elements found in waste streams and take plastics to a new pyrolysis plant that shall soon be commissioned for commercial production of oil,” he said.

Githinji added that the county hoped to attract investors to help them realise their dream of making the more than 100 acre-facility fully operational.

“We are in the process of acquiring a recycling plant that shall assist us in sorting organics from plastics. We are currently engaging a workforce of over 600 people in the manual waste collection and sorting from different places across the county with a section of them being deployed at the dumpsite,” explained Eng. Esther Njuguna, the CEC Environment, water and natural resources.

The CEC added that the county has paid sh.7.5m to youth who have been collecting garbage across the county.

Some of the plastics that have been sorted and gathered at the Kang'oki dumpsite for sale to a Thika-based pyrolysis plant that makes oil out of them.

Jolly Dusabe, who was the World Bank official inspecting the project, said that was very impressed by the development of the Kang'oki landfill project. She added that there was a lot other counties could learn from the project and waste management.

The Managing Director of Thika-based Alternative Energy Systems Ltd Rajesh Kent said that their company used plastic wastes derived from the dumpsite to produce an average 5,000 litres of diesel oil daily.

“We have come up with an initiative with the Kiambu Government to convert waste plastics into valuable resource. We manage this through youth groups, women organisations and CBOs working under the county government to collect these plastics and deliver them to us,” said Rajesh.

He added that their work as a company was to simply breaking down the plastic molecules into crude oil through a technology known as thermal cracking.

“We are converting plastics to something similar to crude oil which is a combination of petrol, diesel, jet fill and kerosene that can be used in industrial boilers and heat furnaces and steam generation,” he explained.

Rajesh added that their oil had various advantages over the regular oils as its consumption rate was half that of the common oils.

Currently, his company has employed 83 workers directly with about 600 youth earning from collecting garbage.