Recycling Gap, Africa's Perspective for Sustainable Waste Management

Africa is a rising continent with a lot of development taking place having a youthful robust growing population. Africa's urbanization is projected to double in the next decade with an equally increasing population in urban and cities surroundings. A growing population also intimates that waste generation will also double if not triple from the developments and human activities associated with a growing urban populace. Waste generation from a global level is expected to double by 2050 with cities and urban centers being the highest contributors to waste generation. Thus, Africa will require measures and policies that will address the future of sustainable waste management in its entirety. In this regard, Africa needs to take stock of their waste management infrastructure and highlight the gaps in existence. One of the problems that are crosscutting in Africa is the gap in full realization of the potential of recycling of waste and the economic and environmental gains attributed to recycling. In Africa, less than 10% of the countries having recycling plants that operate optimally as well as have infrastructure that can sustain proper waste management from financial to personnel. This chapter outlines the gap in recycling.