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2.1Topic c: Composting

Two industrial composting plants operated in Dakar, Senegal and Abidjan, CÔte d'Ivoire during the 1970s. These were financially unsuccessful, plagued by mechanical problems, and ultimately closed. Urban demand for compost has not been established. Additionally, the technology works better with a well-segregated MSW stream. Yard waste may provide a suitable candidate for composting. However this is likely to be a labor-intensive venture with unproven commercial viability.

In the suburbs of larger South African cities such as Durban, Johannesburg, and Pretoria, there are community composting centers. Residents drop off their garden waste and it is composted and resold for household-sized gardens. In peri-urban areas throughout Africa, NGOs, community based organizations, and economic interest enterprises also promote composting of MSW. These projects are generally highly labor-intensive with a low capital investment. The compost produced is largely for self consumption or for sale to households or businesses such as hotels in the city. In Brazzaville (Congo) peri-urban farmers practice small-scale composting, applying the compost to their fields. There are operating composting systems in Benin and Cameroon.

Anaerobic digestion and the recovery of methane are also promoted by several NGOs such as the Biomass Users Network (BUN) in Zimbabwe. However, these systems primarily target rural, agricultural areas and focus on the use of animal wastes rather than MSW.

Overall, even though the organic content of the MSW in the typical African city may exceed 70% (wet basis), centralized composting, anaerobic digestion, and gas recovery are not significant components of African MSWM practice. Further investigation of their market potential may prove this to be an overlooked opportunity.

Backyard composting is limited. Some NGOs promote the practice in Benin, Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Zimbabwe but the practice does not have a significant impact on MSWM at the city level. This may be a large forgone opportunity if the typical African waste stream is high in organic material with potentially high yields of compost.

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