Development and Analysis of a Waste Plastic Generation Profile for Kampala, Uganda

Pollution is a significant global challenge. Municipal solid waste accumulates on land in many areas globally due to lack of appropriate disposal methods, capital and infrastructure for managing waste. In some rural areas, waste management solutions are nonexistent, meaning waste piles around residential locations. One sustainable solution to this problem considers complete elimination of plastic from the ecosystem. This solution is termed as Trash to Tank (3T), a process which converts waste plastic types (polystyrene, polypropylene, low-density polyethylene, and high-density polyethylene) into Plastic Derived Fuel Oil (PDFO) via pyrolysis. The fuel produced is similar in composition to diesel and kerosene.

A country suitable for use of 3T is Uganda, lacking sufficient capital and infrastructure to manage all of its waste. In order to optimize the utilization of 3T process, reduce waste plastic accumulation on land and in the natural waterways of Uganda (River Nile and Lake Victoria), a waste plastic generation profile must be developed and analyzed. This study accomplishes this for a small subset of Uganda, the capital city of Kampala. Through partnership with Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), a local waste management municipality, existent waste plastic generation was determined for the city. This information was correlated with available data on population density and geographical analysis of income level via ArcGIS (a spatial analysis tool) to understand the impact of population and income on waste generation. The results of this study reveal the interplay of these factors for waste plastic management in Kampala and similar sub-Saharan African cities.