YOLEMDE

Sanitation in Burkinabe towns poses serious problems of hygiene and water-borne diseases. Illegal waste deposits are the cause of animal deaths and water pollution. The current phenomenon of plastic bags, the lifespan of which is at least 400 years, leads to a chain of ecological problems, namely that they make the ground impermeable and runoff water cannot therefore infiltrate the ground. As a result, crops lack water and this compromises agricultural yields. Also The loss of thousands of animals that swallow these plastic bags has a considerable negative impact on the national economy. The decomposition of waste releases methane – a powerful greenhouse gas – and toxic elements (such as heavy metals) which contaminate the soil and groundwater.

The collection and disposal of solid waste in the commune of Ouagadougou is one of the management difficulties encountered by the municipal authorities. Despite the effort made by public and private cleaning services, heaps of rubbish continue to invade the streets of certain sectors of Ouagadougou.

In general, the garbage collected is not subject to significant recovery. They are simply evacuated to landfills, these dumps formerly located outside the city, but which, with the urban extension, still abound in the peripheral sectors with the population without the least measure of hygiene. At the current rate of population growth, and at this pace, these neighborhoods are likely to be a vast field of garbage dumps.

Faced with this problem, the search for new approaches to recycling waste is essential. It is with a view to making a contribution to the resolution of this question that the ''YOLEMDE'' solution was initiated to recycle organic waste into biological fertilizer and plastic waste into utilitarian objects.

The solution is to organize a number of actors around the management of urban waste to form what is called a circular economy. Waste is produced in households after consumption of products from agriculture and manufacturing industry. A group of women organized into an association collect household waste from households for a small monthly fee. The waste collected is transported to the ASTD center by these women using tricycles adapted for this purpose. At this level, the waste is stored and then separated into biodegradable waste and solid waste. Subsequently, these two types of waste will be recycled into organic fertilizer for biodegradable waste and will be used for agriculture and in particular market gardening.

The YOLEMDE solution therefore contributes to cleaning up the city and providing fertilizer for healthy agriculture and to making the life of the population more joyful with YOLEMDE everything is clean and the circle is complete.

Urban growth in Africa poses the double problem of its spontaneity and its rapidity. The annual rate of urban growth in Ouagadougou was around 2.93% per year (RGPH 2020). This pace of urban development creates significant investment needs in the areas of drinking water, sanitation, transport, communication, etc. Solid waste management, a new concept in its content, often remained a non-priority aspect in urban development plans in Burkina Faso. Nowadays, with the growing demand for consumer goods from the Ouagalais population, the rate of waste production per inhabitant has increased considerably and therefore poses an environmental problem. The amount of waste generated is estimated at 1.0 kg/person/day (UNEP-2020). The collection and disposal of household waste is increasingly becoming a constant concern of municipal authorities. Sanitation services, transfer and disposal services involved in the collection of urban waste are insufficiently functioning. In 2020, 680,000 tonnes of garbage were thus produced in the capital, which has some 3 million inhabitants. This is three times more than twenty years ago and around a third of this waste is plastic. Thin polythene bags have become an environmental scourge in Africa, where more than 90% of garbage is dumped in uncontrolled dumps and incinerated in the open, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). Sanitation services, transfer and disposal services involved in the collection of urban waste are insufficiently functioning.  Sanitation services, transfer and disposal services involved in the collection of urban waste are insufficiently functioning.

This large quantity of waste produced presents a danger for the environment and for people, especially since the municipality and private cleaning companies only manage to collect 50% of the waste produced.

In this context of economic crisis that the country is going through, the search for an approach to waste management through recycling and disposal at a lower cost, profitable and effective is necessary.

We have five 5 years experiences in waste management and awareness and we are closer to rural communities through our activities in favor of sharing knowledge on sanitation.

financial

The different processes by product.

The project consists of recovering biodegradable waste for the production of organic fertilizer which can be used instead of chemical fertilizer more efficiently. This project was born from the observation of the difficulties obtained for farmers from NPK mineral fertilizer and urea, which is more expensive and rarer on the market. Taking advantage of the strong urbanization of the city of Ouagadougou, the project wants to position itself as one of the pioneers in the production of organic fertilizers made from biodegradable waste and then embark on the transformation of non-biodegradable waste.

The objectives sought by the company are as follows:

• Produce organic fertilizer at least 20 Tons per month
• Conquer market shares for chemical fertilizers and promote agroecology
• Develop processes and various types of organic fertilizer formulation
• Evacuate waste whose presence in the environment whose impact of untreated deposits is harmful to humans and animals

gender respect