MSc.ED, MPH CANDIDATE, BSc. (Hons.)
Sierra Leone has gone through a decade old rebel war which forced a large number of rural inhabitants to migrate into the urban centers for relative safety. This massive rural-urban migration coupled with changes in life styles and consumption patterns has pushed the urban environment beyond its carrying capacity. There has been changes in the composition and increase in the amount of solid waste generated at household levels in urban settlements, yet the requisite collection and disposal services remain rudimentary.
A number of solid waste management projects have been carried out in the country, in collaboration with external support agencies like the German Development Organization (Gtz), DFID etc. A balance sheet of implementation of these projects shows successes and failures. The majority of these projects could not support themselves or expand further when the external agencies discontinue their support.
Personal observation shows that a number of technical, financial, institutional, economic, and social factors contribute to the failure to sustain the projects. As the country continues to urbanize, the management of solid waste is becoming a major public health and environmental concern. The concern is serious, particularly in Freetown the capital city, which is gateway to the country for foreign diplomats, businessmen, and tourists.
The poor visual appearance of the city will have negative impacts on official and tourist visits and foreign investment. The solid waste management system in the country displays an array of problems, including poor urban planning, low collection coverage and irregular collection services, crude open dumping, water pollution, the breeding of flies and vermin, to name but a few. In addition to the above, lack of adequate waste management system and endemic corruption have been identified as major storming blocks.(Richardson, 2003, Zerbock, 2003 ).
However as urban solid waste management problems worsen in the country, alternative approaches to planning urban waste management have to be adopted. These include but not limited to the invovlement of households in solid waste management process. Households should be sensitzed on how to sort domestic wastes before transporting them to communual collection sites.
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