Solid waste management is a major problem in most towns in Kenya. County Governments, who are charged with the responsibility of waste management, are usually faced with a huge challenge. Most towns do not have designated or licensed dumpsites and are characterized by small dumpsites at every corner or street which eventually grow into big piles that are unmanageable. It is also common to find animals such as cows, goats, chicken, and pigs feeding at these dumpsites. This poses health risk as disease causing organisms can easily be transferred from animals to humans through the food chain. Such sites, which are normally littered all over, are breeding grounds for disease causing organisms such as rodents and cockroaches. The dumpsites are also an eye sore apart from blocking drainage systems thus causing flooding in urban areas and breeding grounds for mosquitoes. All these are exacerbated by the rapid population increase as people migrate from the rural areas to towns to look for employment and also seek better social amenities. Increase in population gives rise to high waste generation turnover from domestic, agricultural and industrial sectors.

Ngong dumpsite over time, has been an eyesore. It used to be a small heap of waste but with time the site expanded and became a threat to the neighbouring church compound and school. On a windy day, plastic papers from the dumpsite would strew all over the area. Animals-goats, dogs, donkeys were scavenging freely in the dumpsite.
Scavengers or recyclers retrieve valuable waste products from the waste delivered to the dumpsite. These people carry out this activity in unhygienic conditions without personal protective gear and under the scorching sun. They rubble through the dirt sorting for materials with their bare hands and feet. They also eat their snacks or food in this dirty environment.
The valuable products include plastics, glass, metals clothes and organic waste for feeding the pigs. The plastics and glass collected are sold to brokers who sell to other recyclers companies. The dumpsite is managed by the County Government of Kajiado, who collect a fee from all the transporters as they dump their waste.
NEMA and Kenyatta University partnered with Nuru Youth Group and RCE Greater Nairobi to transform the dump site to an excellent centre for solid waste management, where students can also use as a learning center for waste management including research and innovation. The Nuru Youth group are engaged in sorting and selling of waste as a way of keeping the environment clean and safe as well as generating income for their livelihood. Majority of the members were initially street children and beggars.

Challenges at the dumpsite
In spite of the above strengths there are very many challenges that hinder proper waste management at this dumpsite,
• The waste delivered to the dumpsite is not sorted-the waste is normally mixed and dirty.
• The sorting is done in alternating manner since the shade cannot accommodate both males and females
• There is no storage for the sorted products
• The road to the dumpsite is impassable during the rains, so the waste is dumped on the road away from the dumpsite,
• Uncertainty about the ownership of the land where the dumpsite lies.
• The complexity of waste segregation at source. May not reach the segregator at the site.
• Brokers who buy recovered materials at a low price.