Small-scale urban organic waste recovery

On request of the Undugu Society of Kenya (USK) a comprehensive research was carried out (1991-1993) addressing both problems of unemployment and uncollected waste in low-income areas. Focussing on resource recovery, the research covered the great variety of products made, markets covered and technologies used by smallscale enterprises in six cities in the South. WASTE Consultants has coordinated this research project, whereas the research itself was carried out by consultants in the following six cities: Manila, Calcutta, Cairo, Nairobi, Bamako and Accra. This paper is based on their findings, on field visits and additional literature and deals specifically with the recovery of organic waste, which was one of the ten materials researched. The paper will focus on small-scale recovery methods of urban organic waste and describes three examples from Bamako, Cairo and Manila. It will also deal with economic feasibility, environmental and health aspects, possible measures for improvement and the role of government authorities.