Environmental Health in Khartoum: Cultural and Financial Challenges
17 August, 2015KHARTOUM (SUDANOW) Khartoum state is a wide urban city with a high density of population. As the Capital of the country, Khartoum has many hospitals, universities, hotels , schools, industries, government offices market places factories and many other utilities and business centres. Nearly 8,000, 000 persons live permanently in Khartoum. A great number of citizens also enter and exit the City every day from neighbouring districts. More and more visitors come from various states for different purposes.
This dense population and geographical expansion put a heavy burden on the state’s environmental heath and on the day- to- day public cleaning service, complain environment experts and public cleaning service supervisors.
Khartoum population is made up of a mixture of citizens coming from urban and rural areas. This cultural diversity and social composition create different modes of human behaviour. Many people have come to Khartoum from rural areas seeking better services and better living conditions.
The big rural population exodus to Khartoum started in 1984. During that time nomads and farmers deserted their original villages in Western Sudan because of the drought and desertification that hit their localities. They settled on the outskirts of Khartoum.
Of course farmers and nomads have their own culture and life style which are different from those of urban citizens.
These diverse cultural attitudes and the huge growth of the City and its business activities resulted in negative impacts on environmental health and cleaning operations in Khartoum state, maintain environment experts.
The experts are of the view that that 60 percent of accumulating waste could have been avoided if human behaviour changed in favour of preserving the environment. ‘’You can imagine how so much waste can accumulate if each person in Khartoum just drops a single piece of tissue paper on the ground,’’ Khartoum State’s Cleaning general manager Dr. Musaab Birair observed. People drop tons of waste in the wrong places. People at residential areas or at market places drop solid materials in the drainage system blocking the outflow of rain waters.
Many other people, particularly those operating businesses by side of main streets , assume an ’’ I don’t care attitude.’’ They drop garbage and waste randomly at any place making garbage collection a difficult job.
Dr. Birair disclosed that accumulating waste and garbage in Khartoum state is estimated at 4200 tons per day, stressing that 60 percent of this accumulated waste is a result of misconduct.
He admitted that collection of such huge waste is far beyond the financial and technical ability of the cleaning service department in Khartoum state.
Officials working for the clearing operations department at Khartoum state locality have also complained of citizens’ wrong behaviour and shortage of technical facilities. Head of operations department Abdel Aziim Ali said, ‘’ we don’t suffer from wrong behaviour only. Cleaning operations in Khartoum locality face many other challenges.’’ He summarized the challenges in the following : 1) Considerable numbers of garbage collection cars are out of service and have not been replaced 2) the high cost of heavy machines maintenance 3) connecting the cleaning service to the payment of fees contributes negatively on cleaning programs due to the fact that many people are reluctant to pay the fees 4) the marginal business activities performed by a big number of people makes accumulation of waste grow faster and requires a round –the- clock cleaning service 5) traffic congestion hampers the swift picking of waste from central dumping station near AL Rimaila cemetery in Khartoum to the final dumping stations at Tayba Al Hassanab, Jebel Awlia, Southward of Khartoum and at the Abuwiladdat in Omdurman 6) the low payment of the working force , lack of training and the negligence of the social program support and health insurance affect the provision of an effective cleaning service 7) fixing open sources of cleaning water on the streets is an expensive operation 8) existence of building rubbish on the main streets and continuous demolition and reconstruction of buildings also affects the cleaning operations program 9) lack of specialized courts for prosecuting violators of environment laws hinders effective cleaning of the City.
Despite those difficulties efforts continue here and there to enhance the situation, according to Ali.
He said ‘’the locality has partnerships with civil society organizations such as students and women unions".
At the international organizations level, the locality is engaged in a partnership with the Japanese International Cooperation Agency(JICA).
The civil society organizations help the locality through organizing cleaning campaigns at residential areas. But JICA offers assistance of implementing collection of house waste based on a ‘’ fixed time and a fixed place program.’’
This program, according to Ali, is implemented at Al Daim neighbourhood, South Khartoum. AL Daim was selected from other neighbourhoods due to the fact that it is a multicultural area. Sudanese and non Sudanese are living in this neighbourhood. AL Daim neighbourhood is a densely populated area compared to other residential areas in the locality. ‘’The residents are low- income citizens and each ten family members live in a house area of 200 square metres. This lifestyle makes house waste grow rapidly and require a good standard of waste collection service,’’ argued Ali.
He went on to say that the cleaning program started nearly one year ago and residents are provided with special plastic bags. According to the program, residents must keep the plastic bags containing the garbage indoor until the collection car comes at a fixed time and a fixed place. Ali said the program hires a female supervisor to watch and direct residents to observe the program’s guidelines.
There are two cars provided by JICA which collect the garbage twice a week. Ali said the Japanese have promised to provide the locality with four more cars to expand the project which has proven to be an excellent experiment that can be applied by other neighbourhoods in the locality.
The public cleaning workers in Khartoum locality are estimated at 1500. Vehicles and machines serving in the cleaning program in the locality are estimated at 97. But the ideal number of machines needed to offer a proper service in Khartoum locality alone is estimated at 180 composed of compactors, loaders and other types of machines to remove 4200 cubic metric tonnes of waste accumulated daily, said Ali.
He said waste labourers are working under poor terms of service. Most of garbage workers engage in collecting solid materials and sell them to merchants engaged in waste recycling business. Instead of collecting waste, they spend much time looking for solid materials.
Mohamdain and his three mates who work as waste collectors in Khartoum state have admitted to Sudanow reporter they collect plastic, iron, aluminium and copper wires during their movement around to collect the waste.
Mohamadain said he may gain SDG20 to SDG40 per day from waste collection to redress his low income. Mohamadain said he was promoted to work on operating a waste compressor and his salary was increased. But also he complains from lack of health insurance service. He said he uses traditional medicine to treat himself from cough and some respiratory system infections because he said going to see a doctor and buy drugs is expensive and unaffordable.
Waste could be a huge problem in one country but a source of income in another. In Some countries companies turn the waste from a huge problem into money, Birair said. In Brazil they produce electricity from waste whilst in Egypt they produce organic manure. In Ghana waste recycling is a big business. Companies there employ people to collect waste from the street and turn it into reusable and fashionable plastic bags.
In Sudan waste recycling is a fresh experiment. In 2009 Khartoum state and the Petroleum Engineering Consultancy Service (PECS) established a recycling factory designed to produce 100 tons of organic manure per day. It’s located 45 kilometres north of Omdurman as a partnership project between PECS and Khartoum state. The pilot work started in 2011. However according to PECS’s manager Mohamed Tawfiq the factory failed to produce organic manure because solid waste is separated at waste compacting terminals. The separated waste is not feasible for producing organic manure, explains
Twafiq.
Meanwhile PECS and Khartoum state have changed the purpose of the factory into an alternative fuel factory. Tawfiq said PECS presented an application to the Netherlands to obtain financial support to establish an alternative fuel factory. The Netherlands offered PECS 720,000 euro. The total cost of the factory is estimated at one million euro. Now we are waiting to receive the first disbursement from the fund allocated by The Netherlands, Tawfiq said. Tawfiq expected the plant to be completed in nine months from the construction starting date. The factory, when completed, could produce cheap furnace for operating cement factories.
Involvement of the private sector in waste recycling could maintain sufficient income for private companies, predicts Birair.
He also said they have conducted a study that showed that 14 tons of medical waste from hospitals and factories need to be treated for safety every day. This medical waste is now treated through a sterilization process at the Saudi hospital in Omdurman. The hospital charges factories SDG50 per treated ton. Accordingly, Birair said, the estimated 14 tons of medical waste are treated for SDG700, 000. This sum, he said , is sufficient for operating three or four private companies.
Birair said he believes in handing over public cleaning service to the private sector. For example, he said , a study was conducted by a private company at Khartoum east neighbourhood. He said the study has shown that SDG 200 per month is required to offer proper cleaning service. At the same time, according to Birair, Khartoum state cleaning department receives only SDG10 for offering door- to- door cleaning service.
He adds that, ‘’ I am concerned to remove the visual pollution from everywhere in Khartoum. But the facilities we have and the funds allocated for doing so are limited, he explains. The fleet operating in collecting waste across the state is around 500 vehicles. But nearly fifty percent of the fleet is not working due to lack of spare parts and access to maintenance, noted Birair.
Added to this, Birair said, waste and garbage collecting workers are paid low salaries and are working under difficult conditions. Instead of devoting time to collecting garbage, they spend much time sorting out waste looking for solid materials such as glasses and plastic to sell them to garbage dealers to increase their low income.
Observers note that the garbage collectors in Sudan are not considered respectable members of the society. In contrast, in Japan this job is limited to nationals of the country and the worker in the field is paid an equivalent of US$9000 per month, more than the salary received by a physician.
So, the Japanese believe and lead the world in preserving the environment , commented an environmental expert.
Respondents who talked to Sudanow in various residential areas say ‘’ Trucks allocated for collecting waste do not follow the regular program. There is no fixed time for the trucks to come. People take waste outside their houses and dump it there for days and days, causing visual pollution and multiplication of insects.’’
Generally speaking, recognition of the environmental issue worldwide is considered a new matter historically. It faces resistance from giant commercial companies, said Council of Environmental Affairs (CEA), general director Dr. Omar Mustafa Abdul Gadir. In Sudan, according to Dr. Abdul Gadir, things related to preservation of the environment are bad although , he said , preserving the environment means preserving the life. Our mental setting on this matter is poor, he said
Dr. Abdul Gadir asserted that observation of environmental laws is weak and human behaviour has to change. It takes time to make a qualitative shift in human mentality in order to learn that preserving the environment is necessary for a healthy life socially, economically and physically, argued Abdul Gadir.
Under these circumstances CEA was established with a vision to create a clean, green and civilized national capital under the management of Khartoum state. The strategy of the council is to preserve , protect and promote sustainable development.
Meanwhile, the council follows a policy that ranges from preserving the environment to encouraging public participation in protecting the environment.
Abdul Gadir stressed that the council’s policy is to work with the grassroots in collaboration with civil society organizations to raise the people’s awareness about environmental health and public hygiene.
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