As part of national efforts to promote the smart system for waste management in Kigali city, municipality authorities have officially inaugurated new dustbins, which are geolocalised and monitored via an internet-based system, an official source confirmed to APA Wednesday.
Such dustbins have different colours depending on waste type, with the green ones being for biodegradables, blue for recyclables such as plastic and papers, while grey is for electronics.
During the pilot implementation, five sites were selected in Kigali city including different public markets in the city and a model village at Karama, a suburb of Kigali city.
It is part of the government’s agenda for smart cities, according to officials.
Lacina Koné, Director General of Smart Africa Secretariat, said that waste management is a daunting task for the majority of cities in Africa, explaining that this project is a very good start towards addressing the issue in Rwanda.
Koné indicated that $100,000 (about Rwf100 million) was invested in the pilot project.
“We are committed to ensuring that as more people move into Africa’s cities, we use technology to improve the capacity of cities to accommodate more people. Smart Waste Management is a priority for our growing cities and this pilot project will be the first before we scale this initiative across Africa under the Smart Africa Alliance,” Koné said.
Pudence Rubingisa, Mayor of the City of Kigali said that the City’s population is growing faster, adding that it is expected to double in the next 30 years. He indicated that such a project was needed in waste management in public places accommodating many people such as schools, hospitals and markets.
Paula Ingabire, Rwandan Minister of ICT and Innovation said that applying technology to waste management to help optimise processes, create value across the waste management value chain, surveil activities at the sites with CCTV cameras and generate data using sensors can support decision-making.
“We intend to leverage learnings from this pilot, to scale to all public markets and spaces and eventually homes,” she said.
CU/abj/APA