Uganda’s post-COP26 sans blah, blah…

It has its purpose, its beneficiaries. And we are its victims. Let us get to what is within our means and immediate influence. Starters: why are we dillydallying about the elimination of the kaveera? Who exactly is in charge of enforcing its ban? 

Is it the ministry? Is it NEMA? Is it local authorities, wakina KCCA and her cousins? Is it the environmental police? Is it LCs? Has the ministry met with the manufacturers and listened to their business concerns?

What would it take in terms of finance and technology to switch from manufacturing plastics to biodegradables?
How do we handle this with no losses to investors?

Related is waste management. Is it possible to enforce domestic and industrial waste sorting at the source? Simply have two dustbins at home: green for food, paper, and related biodegradable waste, and red for non-biodegradable (plastics, glass, metal, and related matters).

Contracts for cleaning and waste management companies should emphasize the provision of these double-management bins. This sorting at the source will ease disposal, thus recycling. Our current practices have two sins: creating hazards in form of waste dumpsites and wasting valuable resources by not recycling.

Funds from the environmental levy should be invested in incinerators for hazardous waste; while food waste is recycled into fertilizers and paper waste into paper. Simple. No blah blah. And we are still light years away from eliminating our imported polluters: used vehicles.

As we work on our own ‘innovation’ into electric vehicles, the immediate remedy to air pollution and its health effects is the compulsory fitting of all vehicles with a catalytic converter. This is a device fitted in the exhaust system of the vehicle to render the exhaust fumes harmless. 

Respiratory infections rank high among our morbidities, and vehicle fumes are the primary culprit. This is double mitigation against immediate health effects and long-term carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Ministry of Works and Transport should handle this, alongside number plates. Import the catalytic converters, to be issued as a package on new registration, while for registered vehicles, we set a timeline within which all should have it fitted, preferably tied to third party insurance renewal. 

Alongside this is public transport management. Structured, clean bus transport for intra-city commuting will minimise private vehicles on the road, thus easing both jams and fumes. How far are we in this?

To this, we add another simple measure: minimise fresh food waste in towns and cities. Kampala remains the biggest consumer of fresh foods from upcountry and these are the key sources of solid waste. 

Do we really have to carry live animals from upcountry into cities? The animals are tortured in transit on the trucks. They release hormones of fear which poison the meat we consume. The waste from the abattoirs is another dangerous polluter. 
It is possible to have hygienic slaughterhouses in the producing areas, and transport the meat in insulated trucks into city butchery chains.

Waste becomes fertilizer in the producing areas. Fresh foods wakina matooke, beans, potatoes, cassava, can be peeled and vacuum packaged at source, for distribution via structured fresh food kiosks across residential areas in the cities.

This needs neither Glasgow nor ‘development partner’ support. Manufacturing industries by law must have effluent exhausting and treatment septic tanks’ on site. The entire Industrial area of Kampala is too sandwiched in residential areas for our health. No longer sustainable. Must relocate.

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