KENYA: Pollution from one of Africa's largest garbage dumps causing health problems in Nairobi

One of Africa's largest rubbish mountains -- the 30-acre Dandora site in Nairobi -- is seriously harming children's health as well as polluting the Kenyan capital, a new report said on Friday (October 5). Located near slums in east Nairobi, the open dump receives some 2,000 tonnes of the city's rubbish daily. Marabou storks and other scavengers pick over the noxious heap, while scores of people including children try to make a living off the remains. Some people earn their daily bread from the garbage. "These polythene bags you see here, we buy them from the dump site then we clean and wash them and dry them over there. After that we collect them in bulk and then take them to companies like Kenafric and other such companies that buy recycled paper," said Morgan Mureithi, one of the plastic bag collectors at the site. The study, commissioned by the Nairobi-based United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), found that half of 328 children tested had concentrations of lead in their blood exceeding the internationally-accepted level. Exposed to pollutants from heavy metals and toxic substances in soil, water and air, almost half the children tested were also suffering respiratory diseases, including chronic bronchitis and asthma, the statement said. "We are releasing a scientific report this morning that is based on UNEP'S analysis with local hospitals and doctors of children around this dumpsite and the impact of heavy metal poisoning and also the whole environmental impact of this dumpsite," said UNEP head Achim Steiner, exhorting city leaders to remedy the situation. Nearly half of soil samples from the area had lead levels almost 10 times higher than unpolluted samples. Dandora waste gets into Nairobi River, polluting water used by locals and by farmers further downstream, the report added. At a school nearby, the dispensary has treated more than 27,000 people in the last three years for respiratory problems. "But for me the biggest tragedy here is to see these children and as our report will show today, we have lead poisoning levels here that are 50 per cent of the children. We have respiratory diseases here that are well above any norm that you will find in the country and we also have the problem here of pollution, in terms of the river and the land that are well above any safety levels that are projected either by our partners in the World Health Organisation or indeed the United Nations Environmental Program," added Steiner. Activists working in slums around the dump have formed an anti-dumping committee and are pressing for the closure of the Dandora dump site, to be replaced by a proper waste-processing facility in another location. Both city authorities and private companies dump at the site. "We are seeing our people dying, dying of cancer, dying of problems of lungs, the problem of respiration. This is a reality and and names and the history of this place and stories of many many people," said Father Daniele Moschetti, a member of the anti-dumping committee. Respiratory problems are common at the dispensary which he is in charge of. The UNEP statement said a quarter of all diseases affecting mankind were attributable to environmental risks, with children especially vulnerable. Some 4.7 million children under five die each year from environmentally-related illnesses, it said, quoting World Health Organisation (WHO) figures. And twenty-five percent of deaths in developing countries are linked to environmental factors.

ITN Source | October 6, 2007

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