Assessing the social impact of a venture is a whole school of study which I had vastly underestimated. The assessment methods and techniques are extremely complicated and usually require a lot of assumptions, though are necessary to secure funding, show people that your venture is important and also to measure and assess performance. I am having some trouble doing this for my venture due to the lack of information. Reducing solid waste is definitely beneficial for human health, however the number of people who are affected by improper waste management is not an easy figure to arrive at. Firstly, the actual number of people in Kibera slum is not known, and neither is the physical landscape or characteristics of the slum. On Google Maps, the outline of the area is shown, but for a 2.5 km area, there are no further details and Kibera is a blank space. A NGO called Map Kibera has been working on documenting the area and gathering information in order to create a free digital map. This has been useful for some of my calculations, however the location of structures is not shown. The next issue I am having with measuring the impact is figuring out many people are actually physically ill because of solid waste, if this was worked out, I would be able to project how much money could be saved in medical fees and productivity. However illnesses in Kibera are also caused by poor sanitation, HIV-AIDS, illicit liquor, lack of access to healthcare and more. The residents often do not go to hospitals, and there are some clinics on the slum but their information is not available. Other NGOs working on solid waste do not seem to have assessed the impact in much detail and I am probably going to have to make some major assumptions and have a large margin of error. I am conscious of the issue brought up that some organisations spend more time and resources working out their impact then actually working on the cause.
When I was working at an organisation called Shelter Associates in India on sanitation in slums, a lot of work I was able to achieve was due to the fact that the mapping and information collection had already been carried out by the organisation, This had taken them a few years, and was a very complicated process. Having information on households, layouts and residents was vital in order to assess sanitation and plan recommendations. Some parts of Kibera have been mapped to this detail however there is a lot which still needs to be done. Reliable maps are needed to figure out bin locations, collection logistics and transport routes. If I was actually working on this venture, I would ideally map out these logistics on site. Another issue is human habits. By speaking to residents and observing their behaviour, I would be able to figure out which bin locations would be optimal, how to encourage people to segregate waste and how to avoid the bins being stolen. I am working on contacting Konkuey Design Initiative who works on rehabilitating areas of Kibera slum. I met the team and was able to see the work they do. A member of the team grew up in the slum and would have good knowledge of how to tackle some questions which are coming up. Bins being stolen is a concern, and though there are ways to secure bins to the floor, I have seen the resourcefulness of people who are desperate and do not think this would be a viable solution. I think community ownership and pride in the bins would be more effective. As the communities are closely knit, I think having them on board and protective of the bins would be a better solution.
As I work on the project, I realise how complex it is. Just the segregation and collection of waste is complicated enough, without even thinking about a waste to energy power plant. I have decided on waste incineration because of the nature of the waste and the difficulty in obtaining pure organic waste (especially because of the flying toilets mentioned in the blog 3). Briquetting or composting may be more possible in areas where there is good sanitation and the waste is easily separated, however in this case, it does not seem practical. There are some environmental concerns around incineration, and this is what is making the decision quite tough. I am torn between the solid waste management aspect which would improve the local environment on the ground and the incineration aspect which would cause some air pollution. It is tough to determine which is more important and if you are actually causing more harm than good. However I think that if the plant is designed well, air pollution can be minimised. Though incineration is not an ideal waste management strategy in terms of environmental impact, in this case it seems to be the most feasible. My question is if anyone else is finding they may be causing a new problem in the process of solving an issue, and how are they dealing with this? An even bigger concern, I think, is causing a problem which you had not even envisioned. I think this can be addressed to an extent by conducting smaller pilot projects and trials, though the unpredicted problems are much scarier.
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