Starting from March to May 2023, Clean Up Kenya will conduct several major clean-ups in Nairobi with the support of the Norwegian Retailers Environment Fund and in conjunction with several community groups.
The goal of this campaign is to mobilize over 3,000 volunteers to recover up to 100 tons of plastic debris from the environment, particularly from marine litter source areas along the Nairobi River. The clean-ups are also designed to raise awareness on the pollution of the Nairobi River and to support the efforts of all stakeholders, including the government, to protect and rehabilitate this remarkable urban ecosystem.
The clean-ups will launch on March 11th in Nairobi West, Ngong Road, and Dagoretti South. More dates for mapped locations will be announced in the course of March. The last clean-up will be done on May 27th.
The other mapped cleanup locations include Buru Buru, Mathare, Langata, Majengo, Kibera, Korogocho, Globe Roundabout, Kasarani, and Kangemi.
Of the clean-ups, Betterman Simidi, Clean Up Kenya Founder and Patron has observed, “We are thrilled to have the support of the Norwegian Retailers Environment Fund in this project and look forward to collaborating with all stakeholders to recover a significant amount of waste that would otherwise go into Nairobi river if it was not recovered. The clean-up efforts are timed to begin before the rainy season to prevent the trash from going into the river.”
Cecilie Lind, the CEO of the Norwegian Retailers Environment Fund, which is providing the funding has said, “We are happy to support the work of Clean Up Kenya. Their effort to engage volunteers and remove plastic pollution in Nairobi is important for both the local community and the global efforts to reduce plastic pollution.”
Teresia Wairimu from Dagoretti South, representing a community group, Mdem Wa Mtaa, has observed, “my girls are ready and excited to do this important community work.” She works with women in her community to expand menstrual rights for the urban poor.
This project is coming in the wake of the Kenyan government recently launching the Nairobi River Commission and pledging to invest around 2 billion shillings in cleaning up the river. The clean-ups by Clean Up Kenya are expected to complement the government’s efforts to improve the health of the Nairobi River.
The project theme will be ‘Save Nairobi River’. You can register to participate in any of the cleanups.
ABOUT CLEAN UP KENYA
Clean Up Kenya was established in 2015 to advocate for and promote sustainable public sanitation in Kenya. Since then we have become the de-facto national public sanitation advocacy brand. We are also experts in community mobilizing for cleanups. We have done numerous cleanups over the years, some of which have been attended by over 1000 volunteers on singular sites. These cleanups are meant to increase visibility on the problem of waste and it is therefore common to see our volunteers in bibs with one message, ‘Clean Up Kenya’. At the core of our work is honest and actual engagement in communities – not PR events. We also run advocacy campaigns holding duty bodies, consumer brands, green-washing NGOs, and other stakeholders to account for unsustainable public sanitation in Kenya and the global South. We receive no funding for our work but collaborate with others on projects.
