In Senegal, the deputies have approved a bill to create the National Integrated Waste Management Company (Sonaged). The objective is to improve the sanitation services offered to the population by the Solid Waste Management Coordination Unit (UCG).
Senegal wants to improve the living environment of the population through better solid waste management. Senegalese deputies have just passed a bill authorizing the creation of a public limited company, called the National Integrated Waste Management Company (Sonaged). The organization that will soon be created will have to ensure the continuity of the solid waste management service in Senegal.
Currently, this service is provided by the Solid Waste Management Coordination Unit (UCG), created by Order No. 01048 of January 22, 2018 and amended by Order No. 9160 of April 21, 2020. The Senegalese company will be transferred to Sonaged, along with all public projects and programs for integrated solid waste management. Senegal’s Minister of Urban Planning, Housing and Public Hygiene, Abdoulaye Seydou Sow, has acknowledged the inability of the state’s budgetary allocations to cover the UCG’s expenses.
A part of the “Zero Waste” program
Sonaged will implement the national strategy of waste management around three trades. It will manage the collection and transportation of waste on behalf of local authorities, manage and operate infrastructure at the decentralized level through operating companies in relation to local authorities, and create channels for the industrial recovery of waste into electricity, fertilizer, etc. The company will also work with the private sector.
It will also promote inter-municipality, the professionalization of the sector with the accountability of waste producers (polluter pays) and the expansion of the circular economy, which is a major source of employment in Senegal. To achieve these objectives, Sonaged will have to diversify its financial and material means.
Read Also –
The other part of Sonaged’s mission is the sensitization of the populations. The company will be accompanied in this process by parliamentarians and religious authorities. All these activities are part of the “zero waste” program underway in Senegal. This is a change of approach, which rethinks the waste collection system in order to allow, on the one hand, the recycling of components (plastic, glass, paper, etc.) and on the other hand, the industrial destruction of materials deemed toxic, dangerous, or harmful to public health and the environment.
Inès Magoum
