‘My best friend went to work – and was crushed to death by rubbish’

Fighting back the tears, 22-year-old rubbish collector Okuku Prince recalls the moment his best friend’s lifeless body was found at a massive rubbish dump in Uganda’s capital, Kampala.

The landslide at the Kiteezi dump last August killed 30 people, including his friend Sanya Kezia.

“I think some people are still underneath the garbage,” he tells the BBC.

Many of them eked out a living by washing and selling whatever discarded items they found that still had value – anything from fishing nets to plastic bottles, glass jars and the components of old electronic devices.

A blame-game erupted after the fatal collapse, with Kampala’s city council and central government accusing each other of negligence, while some of the dead still languished under tonnes of rubbish without the dignity of a burial.

When government tractors did eventually dig up Kezia’s body, there were injuries to the 21-year-old’s face.

It was horrifying for his friend to see him enveloped by stinking, rotting waste.

“We’re not safe here. Unless they [repair] it, maybe level it. Otherwise, people are not safe,” says Mr Prince, who before becoming a rubbish-picker had been studying law at the Islamic University of Uganda.

Unable to afford tuition fees after his family became financially unstable, his daily routine is now a far cry from libraries and lecture halls.

Youth unemployment is at crisis levels in Uganda, and there are many like Mr Prince who often risk their health and abandon their dreams just to make a living.

“I come here to the dump in the morning, collect polythene bags, take them for washing and sell them,” says Mr Prince. “I make 10,000 shillings [equivalent to $2.70 or £2.10] a day.”

The collapse has left him in further financial distress as he used to live by the side of the dump – but has had to move because of safety concerns.

The houses of others were also destroyed during rescue operations.

Compensation money has been paid to the families of those who died, but not to around 200 people who lost their homes, local authorities have admitted to the BBC.

Officials are “waiting for the valuation and budget allocation”, says Dr Sarah Karen Zalwango, the new head of public health and the environment at the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA).

Some argue that the Kiteezi collapse was inevitable because basic common sense was ignored.

“You can’t take four million people, get all that waste, mingled – degradable and non-degradable – and take it to one dumping site. No, that’s not how we [ought to] do it. But we’ve been doing it for over 20 years,” Frank Muramuzi, a Kampala-based urban planner, tells the BBC.

The Kiteezi landfill was built in 1996, with financing from the World Bank, to provide a single, major depository for solid waste generated by Kampala.

As Kampala has grown, so too has its biggest rubbish dump.

On the northern edge of the city, it now covers 15 hectares (37 acres) – an area the size of more than 22 football pitches – with its stench spreading further still.

Birds of prey can be seen flying overhead.

The city’s residents and businesses generate an estimated 2,500 tonnes of waste every day, half of which ends up in dumping sites across the city – the biggest being Kiteezi.

But the problem is that Kiteezi lacks the on-site recycling, sorting and incineration facilities that landfills are supposed to have.

“With each layer of trash piled up, the bottom layers become weaker, especially as the decay and decomposition of organic waste increases the temperature,” Mr Muramuzi explains.

“Without vents, methane and other gases remain trapped at the bottom, further multiplying the fragility of the loosely held structure.”

Yet this can easily be fixed, he adds, so long as the government commits to periodic monitoring and audits which factor in environmental, social and economic needs.

Had that already been in place, “the havoc that happened in Kiteezi would have been avoided”, he says.

So, if the solution is this simple, why is it not already happening?

The answer seems to be a combination of power struggles and financial mismanagement.

Ultimate responsibility for keeping Kampala “clean, habitable, and sustainable environment” lies with the KCCA, but Mayor Erias Lukwago, from the opposition Forum for Democratic Change party, says his office lacks the necessary power to enact the changes.

The KCCA says it has repeatedly proposed plans to decommission Kiteezi but says the funds needed to do so – $9.7m – exceed the city’s budget and have not been made available by central government.

“All the support we have been getting is courtesy of development partners and donors like Bill and Melinda Gates, GIZ, and WaterAid… but their capacity is very limited,” the Kampala mayor said recently.

“If we were getting adequate funding from the central government, we would be very far right now.”

There is no word from the government on whether it will allocate funds for Kampala’s biggest dump.

It did pay $1,350 to each of the families of the deceased, saying any further money would only be forthcoming if government agencies were “found to be responsible”.

A month later, a report furnished by the country’s police and crime investigation department led to President Yoweri Museveni – a noted political opponent of Kampala’s mayor – sacking three senior KCCA officials, including the authority’s executive and public health directors.

James Bond Kunobere, Kampala’s solid waste management officer, admits that last year’s deadly collapse was a much-needed wake-up call.

At present, the authorities in the Ugandan capital are drafting plans to turn organic waste into compost and reduce “unnecessary waste” coming into the city.

But they want the public to take some responsibility too. At the moment people pay one of the seven private waste firms operating in Kampala to collect their rubbish, which is all bundled together with little thought given to recycling.

“We haven’t changed the mindset of residents to sort waste,” Mr Kunobere tells the BBC.

“If you sort, waste has different destinations. If you mix, it all goes to one – the landfill.”

Experts say such initiatives are important but do not address the bigger structural inadequacies at Kiteezi.

And for people whose lives have been shattered by recent events there, it is too little too late.

“They promised us compensation, but I haven’t received anything – almost everyone is complaining too,” Mr Prince tells the BBC.

“We lost our friend. All that transpired in the process was sorrow.”

Additional reporting by Natasha Booty.