Raising awareness and training for better management of the issue of urban waste

"I'm the sponsor of this nonprofit, as well as a deeply involved member of the project. I met the president of the association during my training for a Master's Degree majoring in "Waste Management, Treatment and Upgrading" at the National School of Water and Environmental Engineering in Strasbourg. Thanks to the expertise of the colleagues of the group and to local partners, we can select the right equipment and adjust the costs incurred by collection. Collaboration with the team of the Veolia Foundation is another asset. It enables us to work on the content of the training programs organized on the spot for the municipal employees on various key issues: safety, maintenance, etc."

Guillaume Courtin

Like most of the urban communities of the developing countries, the Urban Community of Dschang (CUD), in Cameroon, is confronted with the difficult issue of waste treatment. The volume per capita is growing significantly, as in the northern cities, but the capacity of the local production chains is far below requirements.
The nonprofit Elans (Ensemble pour l'Action Nord Sud) has already been collaborating for four years with the services of the town of Dschang on this topic: it has carried out several feasibility studies to identify valid solutions.
The resulting comprehensive waste management project covers the entire subject: raising the awareness of the population, pre-collection and collection, followed by treatment by composting and landfilling.

Disappearance of 25 illegal dumps

Faced with the scale of the task, the Veolia Foundation is providing its help both financially and in the form of skilled volunteers. In addition to the sponsor of the project, many employees of Veolia Environmental Services have already helped the association compare and quantify various alternatives in order to select the ones ideally suited to local realities.

Boosted by this support and the solid cooperation established with several French territorial authorities, Elans and CUD are now entering the operational phase.
Act One: Installation of a door-to-door pre-collection system in relatively inaccessible districts, in order to eliminate about 25 of the 40 illegal dumps identified in the town, and to enable the skips and boom trucks to operate from the five waste recycling centers and the ten intermediate grouping points simultaneously created.

The operations of the collecting equipment, and the composting and landfilling system, will be supplemented with an intense effort with the population (awareness raising and communication operations) and the employees of the town, as part of appropriate training: risks associated with the urban cleanup professions for garbage collectors and sweepers, safety for truck drivers, vehicle maintenance. A comprehensive program that will achieve a considerable breakthrough in terms of quality of life, health and environmental conservation.