Campaigners Urge Africa to Prioritize Recycling Over Incineration at COP31

Municipal waste generation across Africa risks locking cities into high-cost infrastructure while undermining efforts to curb potent greenhouse gas emissions, campaigners warned on Friday at the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Türkiye.

Global Issues reported that members of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives gathered at the summit to urge governments to prioritize waste separation, composting, and recycling over waste-to-energy incineration. Weyinmi Okotie, executive director of the Green Knowledge Foundation, said that only 55 percent of municipal solid waste was collected across Africa, with just four percent recycled.

Organic material accounts for up to 70 percent of municipal waste in several African cities, according to Okotie, and much of it ends up in dumpsites and landfills. Decomposing in oxygen-poor conditions, this waste releases methane, a greenhouse gas carrying roughly 80 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.

Food waste accounts for up to 14 percent of global methane emissions, citing a report published by the UN Environment Programme and UN-Habitat. That report estimated that 1.05 billion tonnes of food were wasted in 2022, while 783 million people faced hunger.

Financing Flows to Incinerators

Climate finance for methane reduction in the solid-waste sector averaged USD 4.1 billion a year between 2021 and 2022. The Climate Policy Initiative found that 94 percent of that total—amounting to USD 3.86 billion—went toward projects involving undifferentiated waste incineration.

By contrast, just US$223m went to targeted waste-management measures such as landfill-gas capture and food-waste anaerobic digestion, while a further US$22m targeted organic-waste management. Sub-Saharan Africa received 57 percent of the funding dedicated to these targeted projects.

A study released in October by the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives revealed 15 waste-to-energy incineration proposals and initiatives spanning 10 nations across Africa, requiring estimated total capital expenditures of more than USD 4 billion. Public funding emerged as the largest identified source of finance, though only one project—the Reppie plant in Ethiopia—was operational.

Two additional projects remained under construction, while the remaining 12 sat at various stages of approval, financing, planning, or proposal. GAIA’s zero waste and climate programme manager, Desmond Alugnoa, said that administrations grappling with electricity deficits and refuse management issues found the idea of turning garbage into energy appealing.

Community Workers Drive Recycling

Across eastern, western, and southern Africa, community-based waste workers recover organic waste and recyclable materials before they reach dumpsites. In Nairobi, Mary Nyambura Kanyui runs an aggregation yard on Juja Road in Nairobi’s Eastleigh area, buying recyclables from waste pickers and selling them to recycling firms.

Kanyui spent three years collecting waste before establishing her business nearly six years ago, and she now employs five workers who each earn KSh600 daily.

“Someone goes to the yard the first time and sees rubbish,” Kanyui said, explaining that banks remain reluctant to lend to her because they do not consider her materials and equipment sufficient collateral.

Maurice Onzere, project manager of the Fair Recycling project, said women accounted to 57 percent of the waste pickers engaged by the program in December 2025, rising from less than 12 percent in 2021. The project works with approximately 4,000 waste pickers, including refugees and members of host communities.

Within Tanzania, Dar es Salaam waste pickers collaborate with the green advocacy group Nipe Fagio to process organic discards into fertilizer making use of black soldier fly larvae.

Kenya Establishes Producer Responsibility for Waste Collection and Recycling

Kenya’s Sustainable Waste Management Act, passed in 2022, requires waste to be separated at source and holds producers responsible for the environmental impact of their products. Regulations gazetted in November 2024 established an extended producer responsibility framework, requiring companies to finance the collection and recycling of waste generated by their goods.

Dorothy Adhiambo Otieno, a programme officer at Kenya’s Centre for Environment Justice and Development, said some producer responsibility organizations initially subsidized recycling companies buying recovered materials before shifting support to aggregators. Some organizations now explore direct payments to waste pickers, though workers operating informally face documentation requirements that can complicate receiving payments.

Global municipal solid waste is projected to rise from 2.1 billion tonnes in 2023 to 3.8 billion tonnes by 2050, according to the UN Environment Programme. Managing that waste could reach an annual cost of USD 640.3 billion by 2050 if current trends persist, while a shift toward a circular economy could generate net annual economic gains of USD 108.5 billion.