Oshakati is a large town in northern Namibia that has become a major international trade
center for the country. Both Oshakati’s economy and population are developing at a steady rate
(Namibia Statistics Agency, 2012b). However, the town’s waste management system has not kept
pace with this growth. This uneven development has led to an abundance of waste in the local
dumpsite. Additionally, wealth in Namibia is unevenly distributed, resulting in a national
unemployment rate of 28.1% (Central Intelligence Agency, 2014). Throughout Namibia, some
unemployed individuals collect recyclable materials from dumpsites and sell them to private
recycling companies to generate a small income for their families. These workers are known as
informal waste collectors (IWCs).
Approximately 30 IWCs work in the Oshakati dumpsite daily, which exposes them to
dangerous pathogens and toxic chemicals. These workers are making an average of just N$190
(US$14.50) per month for their efforts (Haukena, 2017). This represents just 2.8% of the average
Namibian monthly salary of N$6,802 (US$519.12), placing IWCs below the national food poverty
line of N$204.05 monthly wages. This project will explore strategies to improve Oshakati’s informal
recycling system and create a sustainable livelihood for IWCs.
Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) has already sponsored several
projects that attempted to improve the waste management system and working conditions for IWCs
in Namibia. The latest of these projects were the Recycle by Bicycle project series, which NUST
conducted in Windhoek, Walvis Bay, Swakopmund, Ongwediva, and Oshakati. These projects
studied potential waste collection strategies that will take IWCs out of the dumpsites and help them
collect more recyclables directly from households to improve their collection rates and earnings. The
project prototype consists of a bicycle with an attached trailer. IWCs can ride this bicycle from
household to household and collect recyclables from roadside waste bins, reducing the need for
workers to scavenge through dumpsites to recover recyclable materials. The initial Recycle by
Bicycle trials demonstrated an increased income for bicycling IWCs and a decreased exposure to the
harmful landfill environment.
The Recycle by Bicycle study in Oshakati showed that the bicycle initiative could increase the
income of IWCs in Oshakati by N$0.75 per hour, a 71% increase to their current earnings
(Haukena, 2017). However, this still leaves IWCs below the national poverty line. Despite the
improved collection methods, IWC earnings are still low primarily because of the low sale prices for
recyclable materials set by the private recycling companies in the region. These private recycling
companies, such as Rent-a-Drum (RAD) and Wilco, package the collected materials and ship them
to processing plants in South Africa and other foreign countries. Due to the lack of recycling
processing facilities in the area, these companies expend large amounts of money on material
transportation, thus resulting in decreased wages for IWCs. There is potential to develop a simple
processing system in Oshakati that would minimize transportation costs and increase profits for
IWCs involved in Oshakati’s recycling industry.
This project aims to increase the earnings and livelihoods of informal waste collectors in
Oshakati by making recommendations to integrate them into a restructured recycling processing
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system. WPI students, in collaboration with students and professors at NUST, will consult key
stakeholders in the community, particularly IWCs, to gain understanding of the current recycling
system and to develop the requirements a local recycling processing structure would need to meet.
The team will then consider and analyze multiple processing systems for Oshakati, and ultimately
select one process that will best represent the project goals. The final recommendations for Oshakati
will include the proposed recycling process, the cost-benefit analysis results, a list of potential
customers for the product generated by the plant, and a list of potential investors for the proposed
system. This recommended system should be a cost-effective, sustainable closed-loop system that
integrates IWCs into a formal recycling processing structure to improve both their incomes and
working conditions.