The automation of waste collection arrives in Africa

From the newsletter

Kenya’s flagship smart city, Konza Technopolis, is now home to Africa’s first automated pneumatic waste collection system. Costing $8.6 million, the system is fully embedded into the city’s infrastructure, designed to handle up to 40 tonnes of daily waste for over 30,000 residents, with source separation for efficient disposal.

• At the heart of Africa’s growing waste crisis is poor urban planning that sidelines waste management, leading to overcrowded landfills, unsanitary conditions and systems that can’t keep up with rapid urban growth.

• New cities such as Konza show how integrating waste systems into urban design can transform waste management from a neglected utility into a cornerstone of sustainable living.

More details

• Developed and deployed by Sweden-based automated waste technology firm Envac, the system features 100 disposal points integrated into buildings across Konza Technopolis, connected by a 15-kilometre underground pipe network, 880 automated valves and 220 additional disposal points.

• Each inlet is sensor-activated, triggering a vacuum cycle once full. Waste is then transported through underground pipes to a centralised collection station, where it is sorted at source into four categories: organic, mixed, plastic and paper.

• This automated pneumatic system eliminates the need for traditional garbage trucks, significantly reducing carbon emissions, noise pollution and unsanitary conditions in the city located 60 km southeast of Nairobi.

• Africa’s cities are expanding at a record pace. By 2050, over 60% of Africans are expected to live in urban areas. Yet most urban centres continue to rely on outdated, labour-intensive waste collection systems that are poorly coordinated and often unsanitary. Without intervention, mounting waste will pose even greater public health, environmental and logistical challenges.

• The lesson from Kenya’s Konza Technopolis is not just about adopting cutting-edge waste technology, it’s about integration. In many African cities, waste management is an afterthought. Urban planning typically prioritises roads, electricity, housing and sometimes water supply and sewage, while solid waste infrastructure is left to informal sectors or fragmented municipal responses. This gap contributes to rising urban pollution, public health challenges and environmental degradation.

• According to the UN-Habitat’s Waste Wise Cities Tool , Across African cities, about half of municipal solid waste is collected, but only a small portion—often less than 15%—is properly and safely managed. The reason isn’t simply lack of money or capacity, it’s poor planning. New urban developments often fail to include adequate space for waste sorting centers, collection hubs or even service roads for waste removal. In many residential areas, households are built with no provision for communal bins or collection points, forcing residents to dump waste into drains, vacant plots or rivers.

• To move forward, African governments must embed solid waste systems, alongside sewage, transport, energy and housing, into the DNA of urban planning. This starts with zoning. Urban master plans should earmark land for waste management facilities just as they do for schools, markets and hospitals. Building codes should require space for segregated waste bins in residential complexes, retail centers and offices. Additionally, planning authorities should ensure that collection routes are mapped and accessible before construction begins, not improvised years later.

• Importantly, this shift should extend beyond high-profile “smart city” projects. While Konza offers a glimpse of what integrated planning can achieve, its lessons are most valuable for the secondary cities, townships and peri-urban zones where Africa’s population growth is exploding. 

• Analyses, including those from the African Union and UN-Habitat, project that by around 2040, over 60% of Africa’s population will live in urban areas, often in cities challenged by weak planning systems, insufficient infrastructure and informal settlement expansion. Integrating waste from the outset can help these cities avoid the crises now facing older metropolises like Lagos, Nairobi and Kinshasa.

• Construction and real estate sectors also have a role to play. Developers of housing estates, shopping malls and industrial parks must work with urban authorities to ensure that solid waste management is part of the architectural and engineering process. This means designing for collection flow, storage and possibly even on-site processing like composting or plastic recycling. Right now, most planning approvals focus on sewage connections, leaving solid waste unregulated, something that needs to change.

Our take

• As urbanisation accelerates, African cities stand at a crossroads. They can repeat the mistakes of reactive, fragmented waste systems, or leapfrog toward a more sustainable model.

• Konza Technopolis proves Africa doesn’t need to wait for a tech revolution, it needs a planning revolution. By embedding waste systems into city design from the outset, African cities can achieve cleaner, safer growth by treating waste infrastructure as essential, not optional.

• A look at the Circular Rising funding tracker over the past three months reveals a clear trend: most investments focus on short-term waste handling while few support long-term, systemic solutions. It’s time international donors and climate financiers moved beyond hardware to help governments embed waste management into the very foundation of urban planning.