Clean and Prosperous Uganda – Fecal Sludge and Solid Waste Management for Improved Livelihoods | CPUg
Project Coordinator: Therese Schwarzböck
Coordinating Institution: Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien)
Partner Institutions: Makerere University (Jeninah Karungi-Tumutegyereize); Uganda Red Cross Society (James Mundrugo); Mbarara University of Science and Technology (Elias Oyesigye)
Partner Country: Uganda
Project Duration: 1 March 2022 – 28 February 2026 (48 months)
Project Overview
Fecal sludge management (FSM) and solid waste management (SWM) are consistently recognized as being insufficient in many areas within Uganda. Oftentimes, the management of these two categories of waste are organized separately and executed with insufficient resources, political will, and funding. Nevertheless, there are many opportunities for value chain creation and valorization of materials, micronutrients, and energy content contained within solid waste and fecal sludge, especially when considered together. The project team will explore circularity concepts, test a variety of techniques for utilizing dried fecal sludge (e.g., co-firing, co-composting), and target national plastic waste management (e.g., analyzing plastic recovery and recycling paths). Through which, this project aims to examine how to best optimize and integrate FSM and SWM in urban settings in Wakiso District, refugee settlements in Arua District, and for Uganda more broadly.
The results of such work are expected to:
- Improve waste-related knowledge gaps
- Build capacities of stakeholders at the university and municipal level (e.g., local authorities and service providers); and
- Change perceptions of fecal sludge-derived products by end-users (primarily subsistence and commercial farmers).
These actions, in turn, are expected to improve upon the livelihoods of many Ugandans, to include women and refugees, by reducing their exposure to harmful pollutants and pathogens, all while sustainably creating new economic opportunities in recycling, composting, and energy recovery.
Key Outputs
- Teaching infrastructure and methodology enriched by new resources and lessons learned
- Use of FS experiments and of agricultural experiments to pursue FS value chain creation in Arua and/or Wakiso District
- Draft recommendations for improved composting products, plastics recovery, and RDF production
- Selected students are involved in project and working on their research projects
- Discussions about implementation of gender perspectives within the project
- Dissemination activities are constantly revised, adopted, implemented, and reported
- New software tool WaPla+ for trainings and for publishing piloted
- Trainings are implemented (both practical FS-product trainings and macro-level, integrated FSM and SWM trainings)
Reporting
CPUg Report on the 1st project year (1 March 2022 - 28 February 2023)
CPUg team members have been hard at work trying to make Uganda “cleaner and more prosperous”, as its project title explicitly states. The project is aimed at improving fecal sludge and solid waste management capabilities across the country, with a particular focus on the Imvepi refugee settlement in the northwest part of the country; urban and suburban settings within Wakiso District; and 2-3 selected CDM composting plants throughout the country.
The consortium has been working autonomously on its diverse work packages, while collaboration and communication have been pivotal to galvanize efforts in areas where the respective work packages intersect.
CPUg Report on the 2nd project year (1 March 2023 - 29 February 2024)
Another busy project year on the books for APPEAR project, “Clean and Prosperous Uganda – Fecal Sludge and Solid Waste Management for Improved Livelihoods”. Where to start? Firstly, students and researchers from Makerere University’s Socio-Economics department were hard at work carrying out household surveys within Imvepi refugee settlement and Wakiso District, to determine residents’ baseline knowledge and acceptance of fecal sludge-derived products that might benefit their subsistence farming activities. Secondly, the Uganda Red Cross Society (URCS) has also been playing its part in the ongoing progress of CPUg. At the heart of the past year’s success has been the construction of the vermicomposting and solid waste management units within Imvepi’s combined fecal and waste management center. Finally, the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien), for its part, has been doing its fair share, too. Sara Neuburg has been exploring the residual waste resulting from the composting facilities, in hopes of determining their recycling potential, and their potential to be processed as refuse-derived fuel (RDF). She has successfully conducted the first of two sampling campaigns to this end. APPEAR PhD scholarship holder, Francis Okori, completed half of his course requirements, published his first scientific paper, and conducted lots of field and lab work, both in Uganda at the predetermined composting sites (Mukono and Masindi), and in Austria at the TU Wien Institute of Water Quality and Resource Management. His results will help plant managers improve their processes and compost quality.
Publications
- Francis Okori, Jakob Lederer, Allan John Komakech, Therese Schwarzböck, Johann Fellner: "Plastics and other extraneous matter in municipal solid waste compost: A systematic review of sources, occurrence, implications, and fate in amended soils." In Environmental Advances, Volume 15, April 2024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envadv.2024.100494
- Agnes Nalunga: Resource recovery from fecal sludge cake through black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) larvae composting. MSc Thesis, Makerere University.
For the better part of June 2024, three researchers from TU Wien’s Institute of Water Quality and Resource Management were in Uganda, carrying out a number of activities alongside their partners to help meet the project objectives. Read more.
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