Circular Economy: An Antidote to Municipal Solid Waste Challenges in Zambia

Abstract

Zambia is one of the fastest developing countries in Africa. It is land linked and has one of the most urbanizing cities, the capital, Lusaka. The country is now grappling with serious challenges of managing municipal solid waste that is generated from its growing population and increased economic activity. Circular economy ensures that all the negativities of linear economy are reduced or prevented by ensuring reduced generation of waste at source, reuse of the generated waste and if these cannot be implemented, recycling of the generated waste follows. This results into environmental benefits such as clean and safe air and water. Land degradation or pollution is prevented. Therefore, there is need to implement circular economy as an antidote to the current municipal solid waste challenges. Municipal solid waste management is a critical public good that provides a barometer for the effectiveness of any governance system around the world. Successive governments should embed the waste management issue in all the policies developed for to ensure sustainability. In today’s world of material scarcity and a call to action toward climate change action, it cannot be over emphasized that circular economy is the antidote to municipal solid waste challenges Zambia is facing.

From waste to resource: demystifying the policy challenges and identifying opportunities for a circular economy in Zambia

“…The CE therefore was associated with creating new industries, business opportunities and employment prospects (P1, P5, P7, P8). Thus, a CE may fit with the emerging green economy agenda (P1), which is aligned with the suggestion of Banda et al (2023). The extract from P8 explains the appeal: "[in Zambia] when we talk about waste management system, we think it is the collection and the disposal of waste.…”

“…Despite the principle that waste is a resource outlined in SWRMA (2018), waste is still mainly treated as a burden in practice. Reinforcing observations in the literature (Banda et al, 2023), there were concerns among participants that there are no specific policy instruments, such as tax exemptions or incentives, that proactively encourage the emergence of circular businesses (P8, P12). This was perceived as a shortcoming (e.g., P11: "there is need for some privileges or deliberate steps to just to stimulate the private sector around circular economy").…”

“…Mwanza and Mbohwa (2019) explore the barriers to effective reverse logistics to enable plastics recycling in Zambia, identifying various social, economic, and political obstacles, including lack of regulations. It has been claimed that circular approaches can simultaneously solve more than one development challenge; for example, waste-to-energy technology adoption can satisfy energy needs while reducing waste (Shane et al, 2017;Banda et al, 2023;Tembo et al, 2023). Bwalya et al (2022) studied the potential to use tire waste as an aggregate for the construction industry to overcome waste and resource challenges.…”

“…The study suggests that embracing these ten prospects could add US$712 million per annum to the economy. More recently, Banda et al (2023) explicitly explore the CE and its relevance for Zambia, arguing that circularity could provide an "antidote" to persisting waste management challenges. They suggest that circular strategies which embrace the 3R approach can contribute to development objectives by delivering various social (e.g., job creation), environmental (e.g., reduced pollution) and economic benefits (e.g., financially viable opportunities).…”

“…In the same time period, the capital city, Lusaka, has seen its population grow from 2.2 million people (2010) to over 3 million people (2022) (Zambia Statistics Agency, 2022). Such changes are contributing to an increasingly challenging solid waste management landscape, characterized by growing waste volumes, inadequate collection services, lack of sanitary landfilling, coupled with associated environmental and public health concerns (Mupedziswa and Kubanga, 2017;Banda et al, 2023). Accurate waste statistics are also difficult to obtain.…”