New air pollution sensors installed in Senegal waste sites
Water & wasteNews
Thousands of vulnerable people living in or near the Mbeubeuss Landfill Site in Dakar, will benefit from new air quality sensors installed by Practical Action.
The new equipment will help protect the health of communities living close to the dumpsite and workers in the site by providing real-time alerts when waste burning at the site releases dangerous levels of pollutants, such as carbon, sulphur, and nitrogen oxides.
Around 5,000 people will benefit from the health warnings, and it will also provide an example of improved waste management practices and public health in Senegal, which can be replicated elsewhere.
The new system goes beyond just providing alerts. It also creates valuable data for in-depth studies on the impacts of burning solid waste so Senegalese authorities and communities can take fast and better-informed action against environmental and health risks.
Lucy Stevens, Practical Action’s Head of Urban Services said
“These sensors have been developed in partnership with the École Polytechnique de Thiès and will provide live updates about levels of dangerous pollutants in the air.
“These pollutants come from burning waste at the dumpsites. The information will be used to generate warning messages for waste workers and nearby communities. It will enable them to take evasive action, and the information and warnings will also help raise awareness about the issue in general.
“The results from this work will be shared with the Multi-Stakeholder Platform for eliminating open burning of waste in Africa and is already generating interest among other partners and stakeholders.
“Urgent action is needed across the continent to help countries achieve the commitments they made in their AMCEN Declaration in 2022 to eliminate open burning of waste on the continent by 2040, and I am excited to see how this new hardware will help achieve these targets”
The work is part of a wider project which is addressing issues connected to the open burning of waste in two dump sites in Senegal.
In addition to installing early warning sensors, our work aims to:
- Encourage households to sort their waste and promote recycling practices, reducing the demand for single-use products.
- Raise awareness about the health impacts of open burning and promote better recycling practices and consumer choices as ways to reduce this harmful practice at dumpsites.
- Conduct a comprehensive analysis of air pollution caused by waste burning and examining its impacts on health.
- Improve the health and safety conditions of informal waste workers through training, improved equipment, and links to health insurance.
- Improve recycling rates and prevent waste from being burned. This will be achieved through close collaboration with existing associations of informal waste pickers and recyclers, such as Bokk Diom in Dakar and Medina Fall in Thiès.
- By working with partners to showcase and share good practices from the project and support wider uptake in the work across the country. This will be achieved through the production and sharing of good practice notes, policy briefs, and workshops to facilitate knowledge exchange among stakeholders.
The Reducing Open Waste Incineration to Improve Public Health (RIDAS) project is part of a £450,000 grant awarded to sixteen organisations and projects. The programme supported by Royal Academy of Engineering‘s Engineering X programme implemented by Practical Action in West Africa with École Polytechnique de Thiès and the Senegalese waste management authority UCG /SONAGED.
