Ethiopia builds waste to energy plant that converts trash to electricity. First of it's kind in the Continent. (Photos)

Waste recycling and management is one of the biggest and major challenges confronting many African countries.
The ability to recycle waste into something more productive has been a uphill task in the Africa continent.

Also the issue of collection, management and disposal of solid waste still features highly in major towns and cities across the region. Efforts have been made but to no avail as to correctly manage waste disposal and this has often led to flooding and the outbreak of diseases.

For the past 50 years in Ethiopia, its largest waste dump Koshe was home to hundreds of people who invade the bin to collect and resell rubbish trucked in from around the capital Addis Ababa. Tragic death was recorded last year when it killed about 114 people, demanding the government to rethink an alternative use for the dump site which is said to be as large as the size of 36 football pitches.
The country has since then innovated a new strategy to recycle the waste as it turned the site into a new waste-to-energy plant via the Reppie Waste-to-Energy Project which is the first of waste-to-energy recycling in the Africa continent. This idea forms part of the efforts to revolutionize and recycle waste management practices in the country.
The plant, which was expected to begin it's recycling operation in January, will incinerate 1,400 tons of waste on a daily basis. This amounts to about 80 percent of the city’s waste generation. The waste-to-energy plant will also supply the people of Ethiopia with 30 percent of their household electricity needs.
“The Reppie project is just one of Ethiopia’s major and broader strategy to address waste management and pollution and also to embrace renewable energy across all sectors of the economy. We hope that Reppie will serve as a model for other African countries in the continent , and around the world,” Zerubabel Getachew, Ethiopia’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations said in Nairobi Kenya last year.
The waste-to-energy incineration plant will heat up the waste in a combustion chamber. The heat produced will be used to boil water until it turns to steam, which drives a turbine generator that produces electricity.
The waste-to-energy incineration is also vital for cities where there is short supply of land, as apart from generating electricity, space will be saved and there will be a substantial prevention to curb the release of toxic chemicals into groundwater, and reduction in the release of the greenhouse gas – methane – into the atmosphere.

The project and the construction of the Reppie plant operates within the emissions and it measures up to the standards of the European Union, as it contributes towards alleviating air pollution.
Waste-to-energy plants are already popular and already been used in Europe, as nearly 25 percent of municipal waste is incinerated.
In France for instance, there are about 126 waste-to-energy plants, with Germany having 121 and Italy having 40.
The Reppie plant in Addis Ababa is as a result of the Government of Ethiopia partnership and a consortium with international companies: Cambridge Industries Limited (Singapore), China National Electric Engineering and Ramboll, a Danish engineering firm. The consortium is hoping that there will be more of such projects in major cities across Africa.