Every organisation has an origin story, and ours is less dramatic than most — no single defining crisis, no outside funder walking in with a plan. Kasarani Waste Solution began the way a lot of genuinely useful community work begins: a small, persistent frustration with an unsolved local problem, and a handful of people deciding to do something about it themselves.
The problem that started it
Before any formal collection existed, waste in parts of Kasarani followed a familiar, frustrating pattern: no reliable collection service reaching many streets, informal dumping filling the gap, and a general sense among residents that this was simply how things were, rather than something that could realistically change. A handful of residents, tired of watching the same open spaces and riverbanks fill with waste that had nowhere else to go, started asking a more useful question than "why is this happening" — namely, "what would it actually take to fix it, even partially, ourselves."
The earliest days
The first version of what became Kasarani Waste Solution had none of the structure it has today: no registration, no fixed schedule beyond what volunteers could manage around their existing work and commitments, and a service area covering only the streets closest to where the founding volunteers themselves lived. Collection happened when it could, funded by whatever small contributions participating households were willing to offer, with sorted recyclables sold informally, wherever a buyer could be found, rather than through any structured buy-back arrangement.
It was, by any formal standard, a fragile way to run anything. What it had, instead of structure, was direct trust built household by household, and a genuine willingness among the founders to keep going even when growth was slow and the work was unglamorous.
What convinced us this could be more than informal, occasional help
The turning point wasn't a single dramatic moment so much as an accumulation of evidence that the demand was real and durable, not a passing curiosity. Households that joined early stayed committed, week after week, even during periods when collection was inconsistent purely due to our own limited capacity. Word spread to neighbouring streets faster than we could realistically serve them. And the value of sorted recyclables, once we started paying attention to it properly, suggested a genuine path toward a self-sustaining model rather than one permanently dependent on goodwill and informal contributions alone.
The decision to formalise
Registering as a CBO, covered in more detail in a separate reflection on that decision, was the clearest turning point from informal effort to structured organisation. It happened not because informal work had failed, but because it had succeeded enough to outgrow what an unstructured, trust-based arrangement could responsibly manage — more households, more interest from schools and estates, and a growing sense that residents deserved more accountability than an informal handshake could offer.
What's stayed the same since those earliest days
For all the growth — six villages, four buy-back points, a schools programme, formal registration — the basic model hasn't changed from those first informal months: collection driven by demonstrated local demand, not imposed from outside; segregation treated as foundational, not optional; and fees and pricing kept transparent rather than negotiated informally. What's grown is the scale and structure around that model, not the model itself.
What the founding story means for where we're headed
Looking back at how gradually and organically this started is, if anything, a useful check on ambition. Every genuine expansion so far has come from demonstrated demand, not a plan drawn up in advance and imposed on an area. That's likely to remain true as we look toward a materials recovery point, further village expansion, and a deeper schools programme — growth shaped by what communities actually ask for and commit to, the same way the very first two villages were.
What we'd tell our founding selves, knowing what we know now
Looking back, the most useful piece of advice for our earliest selves would probably be: trust the slow, demand-led pace more, and worry less about how modest early progress looked compared to what a more ambitious plan might have projected on paper. Every instance where we tried to move faster than actual household demand and readiness supported — adding a village before its residents had really committed, for instance — caused more friction than the equivalent patience would have. The lesson took longer to fully internalise than it probably should have.
The people who made those early months possible
It's worth naming, even without going into individual detail, that those first informal months depended entirely on a small handful of volunteers willing to show up consistently with no guarantee the effort would grow into anything more than a neighbourhood curiosity. Several of them are still directly involved today, now in more formal roles within the registered organisation, which we think says something meaningful about the kind of commitment this work has always required — not a short burst of enthusiasm, but a willingness to keep showing up through genuinely unglamorous, uncertain early stages.
Why we keep telling this story rather than letting it fade into the background
It would be easy, a year into formal registration and six villages into route expansion, to let the founding story become a footnote rather than an active reference point. We keep returning to it deliberately, because the instincts that shaped those earliest, unstructured months — demand-led growth, direct trust-building, comfort with slow and uncertain progress — remain exactly the instincts we want to keep guiding decisions now that the organisation has considerably more structure and resources behind it.
Frequently asked questions
When did Kasarani Waste Solution actually start operating?
Informal collection began before formal CBO registration, which was granted on 31 July 2024; the earliest volunteer-led collection predates that registration by some months.
How many villages did the route originally cover?
The route began with two villages before growing, over time and through demonstrated demand, to the six villages — Kasarani, Sunton, Roysambu, Mwiki, Zimmerman, Hunters and Githurai — it serves today.
What hasn't changed since the founding days?
The core model: collection driven by community demand rather than imposed expansion, segregation treated as foundational, and transparent, published pricing rather than informal negotiation.
Curious how that founding model has played out a year into formal registration? Read our one-year reflection, or see how you can be part of the next chapter on our Get Involved page.