Notes from the route, the sorting yard and the community.
Guides, programme updates and stories from our day-to-day work managing waste across Kasarani. 50 articles and counting.
How Kenya's Plastic Bag Ban Plays Out on Kasarani's Shop Floors
Nearly a decade after Kenya's single-use plastic bag ban, here's what compliance actually looks like in Kasarani shops today, and where old habits still linger.
Read Article →New Recyclable Buy-Back Point Now Open in Githurai
Githurai residents no longer need to travel to Kasarani or Roysambu to sell sorted plastic — a new buy-back point is now open on site every Tuesday.
Read Article →Door-to-Door Waste Collection Now Covers Six Kasarani Villages
Our weekly collection route has expanded from two to six villages in under a year, bringing organised waste pick-up to thousands more residents.
Read Article →After the Rains: What Post-Flood Clean-Up Actually Involves
Even careful pre-rains drainage preparation cannot prevent every flood. Here is what our response looks like once heavy rain has already passed through Kasarani.
Read Article →Preparing Kasarani's Drains for the Short Rains: A Waste Perspective
Blocked drains during the short rains are usually a waste problem in disguise. Here is what we are doing ahead of the season, and what households can do too.
Read Article →Why Waste Segregation at Source Matters More Than You Think
Separating organic, recyclable and general waste in the home is the single biggest thing a household can do to make collection cleaner and cheaper.
Read Article →How Buy-Back Income Fed Into a Women's Table-Banking Group in Roysambu
A group of women selling sorted plastic at our Roysambu buy-back point pooled their earnings into an informal table-banking savings group. Here is how it started.
Read Article →What We Learned Piloting a Second Sorting Yard in Zimmerman
A second, smaller sorting yard in Zimmerman cut transport time for two collection routes. Here is how the three-month pilot went.
Read Article →Community Clean-Up Drive Clears Mwiki Riverbank of Plastic Waste
Over sixty volunteers turned out for a riverbank clean-up that removed a season's worth of dumped plastic and restored a walking path used daily by residents.
Read Article →How Boda Boda Riders Became an Informal Last-Mile Link in Our Recycling Chain
A handful of boda boda riders started bringing sorted plastic to our buy-back points between fares. It has quietly become a meaningful part of how material reaches us.
Read Article →Partnering With a Local Hardware Shop to Recycle Packaging Waste
A Kasarani hardware shop now sets aside cardboard, strapping and plastic packaging for our weekly collection instead of burning or dumping it.
Read Article →Meet the Youth Turning Kasarani's Trash Into Income
A small cohort of young people trained in our sorting yard now earn a living wage from plastic and metal that would otherwise have gone to a dumpsite.
Read Article →How to Talk to Your Landlord About Getting Your Building on Our Route
Renters ask us often how to get organised collection started in their building. Here is the practical, low-friction way to raise it.
Read Article →Our Approach to Glass Waste, and Why It's Different From Plastic
Glass is fully recyclable and genuinely dangerous to handle carelessly. Here is how we manage it differently from our plastic buy-back stream.
Read Article →A Simple Guide to Composting Kitchen Waste at Home
Roughly half of household waste in Kasarani is organic. Composting it at home cuts what needs collecting and produces free fertiliser for your garden.
Read Article →A Year of Numbers: What Kasarani Waste Solution Diverted From Dumpsites
Households, kilograms, volunteers, villages: a look at the numbers behind twelve months of collection, recycling and clean-ups.
Read Article →Working With Local Eateries on Cooking Oil and Grease Waste
Used cooking oil and grease from Kasarani eateries create a waste problem most collection programmes ignore. Here is how we are starting to address it.
Read Article →E-Waste: The Hidden Hazard Piling Up in Kasarani Homes
Old phones, chargers and broken appliances sit in drawers because people don't know how to dispose of them safely. Here is why that matters.
Read Article →The Specific Challenges of Waste Collection in Denser, Informal Housing
Some of the areas within our service area have narrow paths and dense, unplanned housing that our standard route model was not originally designed around.
Read Article →How Plastic Bottles Collected in Roysambu Get a Second Life
From collection point to recycler: a look at what actually happens to a plastic bottle after it leaves a Roysambu household.
Read Article →Building an Apprenticeship Path for New Collectors
Rather than a single training session before starting work, new collectors now go through a short, structured apprenticeship alongside experienced staff.
Read Article →Partnering With Local Schools to Teach the 3 Rs
Reduce, reuse, recycle: our school programme puts these ideas into pupils' hands with waste audits, sorting games and a termly clean-up.
Read Article →Why We Still Track Collection and Buy-Back With Paper Logs
In an era of collection apps and digital tracking, our operation still runs largely on paper logs at the point of service. Here is why that has been a deliberate choice.
Read Article →Why Open Dumping Along Mathare River Threatens Public Health
Waste dumped into waterways doesn't disappear. It moves downstream, breeds disease vectors, and resurfaces as a health problem for everyone along the river.
Read Article →What 'Biodegradable' Actually Means on Plastic Packaging, and What It Doesn't
More products in Kasarani shops now carry "biodegradable" labels on their plastic packaging. Here is what that claim actually requires, and where it commonly misleads.
Read Article →Our Waste Collectors: The Everyday Heroes of Clean Kasarani
Before dawn, our collection team is already on the road. A look at the people behind Kasarani Waste Solution's daily operations.
Read Article →Handling Waste at Local Events: What Kasarani Day Taught Us
Large local gatherings generate a spike in waste that our normal weekly schedule was not designed to absorb. Here is what we learned supporting a recent community event.
Read Article →Understanding Nairobi County's Waste Management Bylaws
What residents and small waste enterprises in Kasarani are actually required to do under county law, explained in plain language.
Read Article →Roysambu's First Buy-Back Seller, Looking Back
Before Roysambu had a fixed weekly buy-back schedule, one resident was already sorting and bringing plastic to us informally. Her early participation shaped how the point was designed.
Read Article →From Waste to Wealth: Our Plastic Buy-Back Initiative Explained
We pay residents a small fee per kilogram of clean, sorted plastic. Here is how the initiative works and why it changes behaviour.
Read Article →What We Learned From Community Waste Efforts That Came Before Us
We were not the first attempt at organised community waste collection in this part of Kasarani. Understanding what came before, and why it did not last, shaped several of our earliest decisions.
Read Article →Five Ways Households Can Cut Waste Before It's Even Collected
The cheapest waste to manage is waste that was never created. Five practical habits that shrink what your household throws out each week.
Read Article →The Small Plastic Sachet Problem Most Recycling Conversations Miss
Water and juice sachets are small, cheap, and everywhere in Kasarani's waste stream. They are also nearly impossible for us to recycle economically, and worth understanding why.
Read Article →Sunton Estate Joins the Weekly Segregated Collection Programme
Sunton becomes the latest estate to move from mixed to segregated collection, with separate pick-up days for organic and recyclable waste.
Read Article →Why Churches and Mosques Have Become Useful Collection Points
A few religious institutions in our service area now host informal recyclable drop-off points before their weekly services. Here is how that arrangement developed.
Read Article →Climate Change and Waste: Why Landfills Matter for Kenya
Decomposing organic waste in landfills produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Diverting it through composting is a climate action, not just a tidiness one.
Read Article →Funerals, Weddings and the Waste Nobody Plans For
Family events like funerals and weddings generate a sudden spike in household waste that a normal weekly collection schedule was not designed to absorb. Here is how we handle requests for extra support.
Read Article →Building a Materials Recovery Point in Kasarani: Our Plan
A fixed sorting and recovery site would let us process far more waste locally instead of transporting it out of Kasarani. Here is what we're working toward.
Read Article →Planning Ahead of Kasarani's Growing Population
Kasarani continues to grow as more residents move into the area. What that growth means for waste volumes, and how we are trying to plan ahead of it rather than behind it.
Read Article →Volunteer Spotlight: Retirees Leading Clean-Up Saturdays in Zimmerman
A group of retired residents has become the steady backbone of our Zimmerman clean-up Saturdays, showing up every single month regardless of weather.
Read Article →Two Years of Collection Work: What Our Safety Record Has Taught Us
Waste collection carries real occupational risk. Looking back honestly at incidents and near-misses over our operating history has directly shaped our current safety practices.
Read Article →Sanitary Waste and Dignity: Supporting Girls Through Better Disposal
Safe sanitary waste disposal is rarely discussed openly, but its absence has a real effect on school attendance. Our schools programme now addresses it directly.
Read Article →What 'Circular Economy' Actually Means for a Place Like Kasarani
The term 'circular economy' shows up often in waste policy discussions, but rarely explained in terms that connect to a specific community. Here is what it actually looks like on the ground here.
Read Article →Reflecting on Our First Community Baraza on Waste Management
Months before registration, a single open community meeting shaped almost everything about how Kasarani Waste Solution operates today.
Read Article →Making Collection and Buy-Back Genuinely Accessible for Residents With Disabilities
Standard collection points and buy-back queues are not automatically accessible to residents with mobility or other disabilities. Here is what we have changed after hearing directly from affected residents.
Read Article →How Githurai Market Vendors Are Reducing Organic Waste Loss
A pilot with vegetable vendors at Githurai market cut spoiled produce waste significantly by connecting unsold stock with our composting stream.
Read Article →Lessons From Our Pilot Recycling Bin Rollout in Hunters
Our first attempt at placing shared recycling bins in a public area taught us as much from what went wrong as from what worked.
Read Article →Why We Registered as a CBO — And What It Means for Kasarani
Formal registration under Kenya's Community Groups Registration Act gave our informal clean-up group legal standing, accountability and room to grow.
Read Article →Looking Back: Kasarani Waste Solution's Founding Story
From a handful of neighbours pushing a borrowed wheelbarrow to a registered CBO: the story of how Kasarani Waste Solution began.
Read Article →Kasarani Waste Solution Marks One Year Since CBO Registration
On 31 July 2024 we were formally registered as a Community Based Organization. A year on, we look at what that registration has made possible.
Read Article →Have a question we haven't covered?
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