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WASTE MANAGEMENT

 ZANZIBAR, TANZANIA

The Problem

Trash on Zanzibar Island

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The Community

Large amounts of solid trash have polluted Zanzibar Island. 650 tonnes of solid waste is generated per day, only around 45% of which is handled by Zanzibar Municipal Council. The rest is left on streets, beaches, or burned. Public awareness in achieving sustainable waste management is minimal.

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Trash in markets, streets, and beaches

"I was heart broken to see hundreds of plastic bottles on the beach in Nungwi... Zanzibar needs a plastic recycling plant and a program that would pay money to the locals to collect plastic bottles... I collected plastic bottles on the beach for two days and it was tiring and discouraging"

Comments on a Beach of Zanzibar

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The Impact

Due to insufficient waste management, this problem persists and poses environmental, economic, and medical concerns for the island and its inhabitants. Lack of waste management leads to diseases, flooding, and harms the environment.

SERVICES

The Community

A Look into Kairo Village

Kairo is a small village of about 300 people within the Kiwengwa ward on the east coast of Zanzibar. Kiwengwa is a rural ward with a population of 3,575 as of 2012. In Kairo burning trash is very common; creating air quality problems which lead to respiratory health issues.

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Based on an interview our contact in Zanzibar, Sarah Levitt, it is clear that Tanzania as an entire country is making steps to become more sustainable. Individuals in Kairo know that trash is an issue, however, she told us that many continue to burn their trash because there aren’t other easy options for waste management. She assured us that people in Kairo want to work towards a cleaner community and they are eager to learn about how they can do so. Our solution strategy focuses on collaborating with them to achieve this shared goal.

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ABOUT
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Demographics

The people on Zanzibar come from diverse ethnic origins including descendants from the Hadimu and Tumbatu tribes, Goa, India, and Pakistan. The national language is Swahili, though some residents speak English or Arabic. The majority of the population is Muslim, and there is also staggering amount of people in the Christian community.

Economy

The economy of Zanzibar depends on fishing and farming, tourism, as well as exports of spices, seaweed, and fine raffia (cloth woven from raffia palm, pictured top right). The average annual income is equivalent to US $250, with about half of the residents below the poverty line.

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This plot shows the percent of individuals who have access to at least basic sanitation in rural areas (y) vs urban areas (x) in Tanzania. The first data point in the bottom left is the year 2000. Access to sanitation has increased in both communities towards the top right data point, 2015. It is clear that sanitation has improved over time, but it is still only 20% of individuals in rural Tanzania that have access to basic sanitation--meaning 80% don't.

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To explore more Tanzania data, visit GapMinder.

PROJECTS

Our Connections to Kairo

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Maria Penella and Sarah Levitt are our english speaking connections to Kairo. Originally from South Africa, Sarah is a hotel owner near Kairo and lives there full time. Maria, an American graduate student, lived in Kairo village during summer 2018 and has a passion for sustainability. On August 2nd, 2018, both Sarah and Maria organized a trash awareness community meeting for Kairo village (pictured right). After the meeting the community worked together to pick up the trash on the ground across the whole village.

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Maria's blog gives a virtual glimpse of some of the community members in Kairo.

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Steps to Solutions

Our Goal

This is a new project to the Appropriate Technology class. Our goal for this 10-week project is to do background research and plan an implementation strategy in order for another student group to take over in the future. Usually we think of reducing waste as Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Sarah Levitt told us that most of the trash consists of plastic bottles from water, juice and soda. Because there is no clean tap water for drinking in the village (or most rural areas on the island), this waste cannot be reused without also implementing a clean water system. Adding something like a plastic bottle tax will not reduce the number of bottles used, only decrease the money households have left for other necessities. For this reason, we have decided to focus on the Reuse and Recycle. There are three steps to our plan:

     1. An education program to get locals on board

     2. Improved waste management

     3. Comparing methods of reusability and recycling

Explore these steps by clicking on the images below

Demographic & Economy
Community Connection

Meet Our Team

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Jay is studying Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies and pursuing a sustainable environments minor. He loves traveling and wanted to help make a difference for people in a society that lacks the resources to manage their environmental impact.

Jay Harvey

Jenna is studying Statistics and Data Science. She enjoys being outdoors, playing music, and traveling. For this project, she focused on background research of Zanzibar and exploring options for reusability.

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Jenna Landy

Megan is a third year Child Development major at Cal Poly. For summer 2018, Megan lived in Zanzibar with the village of Kairo and formed a relationship with the community. There, she learned her admiration for sustainability and has a passion to maintain it after seeing the trash issue in Zanzibar first hand. 

Megan Handley

Emily is a fourth year Business, Marketing major at Cal Poly with a minor in Sustainable Environments. She has a passion for travel and protecting the planet. Her focus on this project is the business operations surrounding an integrated waste collection system.

Emily Holloway

Cailyn Wolberg is a second year chemistry major from Denver, Colorado. Her interests include music, poetry, and outdoor activities. Cailyn will be focusing on the education portion of the project and is interested in the environmental impacts of the issue. 

Cailyn Wolberg
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CLIENTS
Project Video
UNIV 391/491

This project reflects our passions and the efforts driven from the Learning by Doing education at Cal Poly, SLO. We are thankful for the class UNIV 391: Appropriate Technology for the World's People with an emphasis on development for igniting our development model and overall change. 

Inquiries

For any inquiries, questions or commendations, please email any of the team members at the addresses above. We encourage it! 

CONTACT
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