Kenya: Churches demands closure of toxic dumpsite

Christian groups in Nairobi, Kenya, are calling for the country's biggest dumpsite, Dandora to be closed, calling it a major health hazard to a million residents.

The KUTOKA Network, including four Catholic parishes, says that in the last three months alone, the dumping site and its smoke have reached unprecedentedly high levels and immediate action is needed. The campaign for its relocation started in 2001 when the site was declared full and a danger to health. Eight years on, despite numerous promises by authorities nothing has happened.

Campaigners demand: the immediate closure and relocation of the Dandora dumping site to a non-residential area; a policy for waste management; recycling infrastructures; formal employment for people currently working around the dumping site, and finally the reclaimation and decontamination of the Dandora area on December 10, 2009, World Human Rights Day.

Dandora municipal dumpsite is the only one that serves Nairobi which has over four million inhabitants. More than 2,000 tonnes of rubbish are dumped there daily including chemical, hospital, industrial, agricultural and domestic waste and left unprocessed.

The KUTOKA Network works with slumdwellers, sharing experiences, reflecting together, and planning common initiatives and actions. For more information, and a film about Dandora see: www.kutokanet.com/