Kibera, a slum of Nairobi, Kenya, has found a solution to huge waste management problems by creating a new type of public space – so called productive parks. In Kibera trash is usually deposited in the nearby river and swept away during seasonal flooding. There is approximately one toilet for every 500 people. Residents use plastic bags as their primary mean of disposing faeces. Filled bags are tossed along the road or into the river and lead to significant health problems. About 700.000 to 1 million inhabitants live in Kibera. The area is 2550km², roughly two-thirds the size of Manhattan’s Central Park.
The new productive parks will provide open space, generate income and systemize waste collection. Divided into three sections, the parks offer an open community area with playground, agricultural zones to support the cottage industry of water hyacinth cultivation and a third area with a fenced area to hold compost barrels and a bank of toilets. Within the system, composting becomes integral. Not only will it alleviate Kibera’s urgent waste problem by providing places designated for refuse (80% of its waste is compostable), but the resulting compost can also be sold on the market as fertilizer. Revenue can fund park and toilet maintenance.
The idea to create productive parks was born in the summer of 2006 where landscape architecture and urban planning students from the Harvard Design School paired up with students from the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), the University of Nairobi, and community members to research the needs and physical conditions in Kibera. Based on the findings of this research, they started working in the realisation of the parks in July 2007.
Parks are planned to serve roughly 250 of their immediate neighbours, which will keep them at scales small enough to encourage local involvement and large enough to be sufficiently productive. The parks cost 10.000 US dollars (2007 dollars) to construct. One park is underway and many more scheduled for the future. Local inhabitants are employed to do some of the construction work.
”Existing models usually solve one problem but exacerbate another” according to Odbert. “They may put in a bank of toilets or a public park, but when the toilets fill up and the park needs maintenance, there are no funds to address these conditions” (Gendall 2008:68).
Links:
[1] mailto:jaz@dac.dk
[2] http://www.c40cities.org/docs/casestudies/waste/dhaka_fertiliser.pdf
[3] http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/admissions/global/kdi_kibera.html
[4] http://kiberapublicspace.blogspot.com/2008/01/election-update.html
[5] http://www.ecobuild-africa.com/index.html
[6] http://kiberapublicspace.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive.html