For some Kampala households, paying Shs1,000 to have their rubbish collected is an expense worth avoiding. But what appears to be a small saving can become a much bigger financial burden when discarded waste blocks drainage channels, floods businesses and forces families to spend money on problems that proper disposal could have prevented.
The contradiction is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Kampala has businesses collecting garbage for a fee, informal waste pickers recovering materials for resale and public institutions investing in better disposal facilities.
Yet rubbish accumulating along roadsides and in drainage channels. The question is no longer whether Kampala can afford to collect its waste, but how much the city is losing because some of that waste is never collected.
Ambrose Buyinza, an officer at the Urban Action Lab, a research space within Makerere University’s Department of Geography, Geomatics and Climatic Sciences, says the financial consequences are severe in informal settlements, where many residents depend on daily earnings.
Under the Urban Futures project, researchers have examined climate-related vulnerabilities in Bwaise, Kikubamutwe, Acholi Quarters and Makerere Kivulu. Their work connects flooding, extreme heat and poor waste management to disruptions in household livelihoods.
Buyinza explains that flooding affects more than the physical structures in which people live. It also determines whether traders can open their businesses, workers can reach their workplaces and customers can move between communities.
In Bwaise, where flooding remains a recurring problem, traders operating small restaurants, garages and roadside businesses can lose an entire day’s income when heavy rainfall makes roads impassable.
‘When it is raining or when there are extreme weather events regarding rainfall, they do not do business,’ Buyinza says.
For a trader surviving on daily sales, the loss is not necessarily recovered when the water recedes. Rent, household expenses and other obligations remain, even when business has stopped.
Buyinza says flooding also increases transport costs because residents are sometimes forced to use longer routes to reach Kampala’s commercial centre.
The research has not yet established the monetary value of these losses. Buyinza acknowledged that further investigation could quantify the economic consequences.
This leaves a gap in understanding how much informal businesses lose annually to flooding and how those losses compare with the cost of preventive interventions.
Although drainage improvements, including works on the Nakamiro Channel, have reduced some of the flooding-related losses in Bwaise, Buyinza believes implementation remains a challenge.
But there is an economic opportunity in recycling. In Makerere Kivulu, residents have recovered plastic bottles, glass and used tyres, demonstrating that materials commonly discarded as rubbish can support income-generating activities.
The difficulty, however, begins much earlier in the waste collection chain.
Jamil Kisubi, an inspector at Nabugabo Updeal Venture, says some households avoid paying collection fees despite having access to waste disposal services.
According to Kisubi, residents sometimes accumulate rubbish for weeks while waiting for National Cleaning Day, when they expect it to be removed without paying.
‘The people who are generating that waste can buy the things that generate waste, but they are not willing to pay for the waste they generate,’ he says.
The practice creates a problem for collection companies because waste that could have been removed gradually accumulates into large quantities requiring additional handling.
Kisubi explains that the company previously relied on monthly collection arrangements, with charges including Shs5,000, Shs7,000 and Shs10,000.
However, some households prefer to pay informal individuals to dispose of rubbish elsewhere rather than subscribing to regular collection services.
The company subsequently introduced a system allowing residents to bring waste directly to collection trucks and pay smaller amounts.
Under the arrangement described by Kisubi, a resident can pay Shs1,000 to dispose of approximately 50 kilogrammes of waste.
Yet even this option has encountered resistance.
‘They are not going to wait for the truck to come. They want to just dispose of it and run away,’ Kisubi says.
His account exposes an uncomfortable economic contradiction.
A household may avoid a Shs1,000 collection fee, but the resulting rubbish can contribute to flooding that damages merchandise, interrupts business or increases transport expenses by considerably more.
The apparent saving is, therefore, transferred to other households, businesses and public institutions.
Kisubi says collection companies are working with local council leaders to improve awareness and encourage residents to use designated collection services.
He believes stronger enforcement of waste disposal requirements is also necessary, particularly where residents repeatedly dump rubbish in drainage channels.
However, the challenge raises another question: whether low-income households consistently have access to affordable, reliable collection services, or whether enforcement alone would place additional pressure on already constrained budgets.
Rubbish with a market value
Emily Namanya, the supervisor for Solid Waste and Environment at Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), says poor separation of household waste is preventing residents from benefiting financially from materials that could otherwise be sold.
She explains that households are expected to separate organic materials from inorganic waste before collection.
Instead, different types of rubbish are frequently mixed and dumped along roadsides or in drainage channels.
‘When it’s segregated, there’s a value attached to it,’ Namanya says.
According to Namanya, KCCA has mapped waste pickers and recyclers operating within the city, enabling residents to identify people who can purchase recyclable materials.
This presents a different economic arrangement from conventional garbage collection.
Rather than paying to dispose of everything, households could earn money from selected recyclable materials while paying for the removal of waste that has no immediate resale value.
The Authority is also planning to revive the Wankoko Recycling Centre to handle materials including plastics, polythene bags and paper.
Namanya says government funding has been provided during the current financial year to support the acquisition of garbage trucks and improvements in waste management infrastructure.
KCCA also intends to develop an integrated waste management facility where organic waste, recyclable materials and residual rubbish would be handled separately.
The Authority currently works with nine waste collection agents across Kampala’s five divisions, according to Namanya.
However, the proposed recycling investments raise questions about the commercial arrangements that will support them.
For instance, the prices residents will receive for recyclable materials, the quantities recycling facilities will be able to purchase and the markets for processed products will determine whether waste recovery becomes a meaningful source of household income.
There is also the question of whether households will have sufficient incentives to separate their rubbish consistently.
Without reliable collection arrangements and buyers for recovered materials, the economic value of recycling may remain beyond the reach of many low-income residents.
When the public pays
Sadat Kiwewa, a solid waste management officer in Kampala Central Division, says the consequences of improper disposal extend beyond individual households to public expenditure.
‘When you recklessly dispose of your waste, it will come back to you,’ he says.
Kiwewa explains that rubbish blocking drainage channels requires public resources to remove, while poor sanitation can contribute to illnesses that increase household medical expenses.
These costs are particularly high because money spent repeatedly clearing blocked channels cannot simultaneously finance other public services.
The burden is also felt by traders.
Kiwewa cites the experience of Kamwokya, where accumulated rubbish previously affected the environment around commercial establishments.
He says improvements in waste handling have made the area more attractive to customers.
For small businesses, cleanliness is, therefore, not merely an environmental concern. It can influence whether customers are willing to enter a shop, purchase food or spend time in a market.
Kiwewa also points to opportunities for connecting waste generators with urban farmers.
He explains that some farmers can use selected organic materials, while mushroom growers may require agricultural residues such as sugarcane waste.
But these opportunities depend on how materials are handled.