Kasarani Waste Solution wasn't the first attempt at organised community-level waste collection in this part of Nairobi. At least two earlier informal efforts, predating our own founding, tried something similar and didn't last. Understanding honestly why they struggled shaped several decisions we made early on, and it's a conversation worth having openly rather than pretending we started from a blank slate.
What we know about these earlier efforts
Based on conversations with long-time residents during our founding period, at least one earlier initiative ran an informal collection arrangement covering a smaller area than our current route, funded through irregular, negotiated household contributions rather than a published fee structure. Another appears to have started as a school-linked clean-up effort that didn't develop into ongoing collection infrastructure beyond occasional organised events.
Why the informal collection effort didn't last
From what residents described to us, the earlier collection initiative struggled specifically around inconsistency and trust — collection happening reliably for a period, then becoming irregular as whoever was organising it faced their own competing demands, with no formal structure to sustain the effort independent of specific individuals staying committed indefinitely. Fee contributions, negotiated informally rather than published, also reportedly created friction, with some residents paying different amounts for what should have been the same service.
How this directly shaped our own early decisions
Two of the clearest structural choices we made from very early on trace directly back to these lessons. Our insistence on fixed, published, non-negotiated fee rates, discussed in our reflection on segregation and elsewhere, was a direct response to hearing how inconsistent, informally negotiated pricing had undermined trust in an earlier effort. Similarly, our eventual decision to register formally as a CBO, rather than remaining purely informal indefinitely, was shaped by understanding that an effort dependent entirely on specific individuals staying involved, without any structure to outlast them, had a real, demonstrated history of eventually fading in this exact area.
What we deliberately didn't assume would be different simply because we tried harder
It would have been easy to assume our own effort would simply succeed where others hadn't, through better intentions or more energy. We tried instead to identify the specific structural weaknesses in what came before — inconsistent scheduling, informal and variable pricing, no institutional continuity beyond individual commitment — and address each directly, rather than assuming general enthusiasm alone would produce a different outcome.
Why we think this history is worth sharing publicly
There's a temptation, when telling an organisation's founding story, to present it as though the need was simply obvious and unaddressed before you arrived. The more honest version, at least in our case, is that people had already tried to address this need, with real effort, and the specific ways that effort fell short taught us something concrete rather than something we discovered entirely on our own.
What this means for our own long-term durability
We don't think formal registration alone guarantees we won't eventually face similar pressures to what came before us — growth pressures, funding uncertainty, the ordinary challenges any community organisation eventually confronts. What we do think it provides is a structural foundation, a defined governance model and legal continuity, that the earlier informal efforts in this area simply didn't have, which at minimum removes one specific, demonstrated failure mode from what we're up against.
What this means for other community groups elsewhere
If you're part of, or considering starting, a similar informal community effort elsewhere in Nairobi, we'd genuinely encourage looking into whether anything similar has been tried in your area before, and if so, why it didn't continue. That history, uncomfortable as it sometimes is to surface, is often more directly useful than any external case study or general best-practice guide.
How we verified these accounts, and their limits
We should be clear that our understanding of these earlier efforts comes from informal resident recollection during our founding period, not documented records we've independently verified, since neither prior initiative appears to have left behind formal paperwork we could review directly. We've treated these accounts as directionally useful rather than precisely authoritative, which is itself consistent with the broader lesson: informal efforts, however well-intentioned, tend not to leave behind the kind of institutional record that formal registration requires.
Frequently asked questions
Were there other waste collection efforts in Kasarani before your organisation started?
Yes, at least two earlier informal initiatives that we're aware of, neither of which developed into lasting, ongoing collection infrastructure.
Why do you think earlier efforts didn't continue?
Based on resident accounts, inconsistent scheduling, informally negotiated and variable pricing, and a lack of structure independent of specific individuals staying involved all appear to have contributed.
How has this shaped your own organisation's structure?
Directly — our published, fixed fee rates and our eventual formal CBO registration were both shaped by understanding these specific earlier weaknesses.
Read more about our own founding in our piece on looking back at how it all began.