Business Opportunities and Challenges for Small and Medium Enterprises in Waste Recycling in Nairobi East Sub-county
Abstract
Waste management is one of the most visible urban services whose effectiveness and
sustainability serves as an indicator for good local governance. Waste management
therefore is a good indicator of performance of a municipality. The search for sustainable
development, increased population pressure in urban areas, land limitations associated
with difficulties in finding suitable sites for establishing landfills as well as decrease in
raw materials compounded with challenges of waste collection and disposal, makes
recycling a preferred option for solid waste management.
This research based on a survey design targeting entrepreneurs, employees and
enterprises was conducted to examine the opportunities available for, and the challenges
faced by, small and medium enterprises in their recycling effort in Nairobi East Subcounty
with specific objectives of documenting the available opportunities and
challenges for Small and Medium Enterprises involvement in recycling and the efforts
made by Small and Medium Enterprises in exploiting such opportunities and overcoming
challenges in the recycling sector.
To achieve this, questionnaires, interviews and naturalistic observation checklist were
used to collect data. The semi-structured approach of the interviews employed allowed
the researcher to achieve an in-depth approach of collecting data. This in turn helped in
collecting many different views of the subject matter under study.
Various theories where used in addition to the data collected so as to give an
interpretation and enhance understanding of the subject matter from findings obtained.
Issues regarding relationships between environment, the economy, society and public
policy have been anchored in Ecological Modernization theory whereas issues of waste
minimization and/or resource use optimization goals and values; have been influenced by
Waste management theory, built under the paradigm of Industrial Ecology. Ecological
systems approach did assist with the deeper understanding of organizations in relation to
contextual environmental factors such as “structure, size, technology, and leadership
patterns and Organizational life cycle model, while SME development theory, helped
clarify enterprises‟ stages of life cycles and the transformation from one stage to another.
Data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS and excel
spreadsheets. The results indicate that about 86% of the respondents agree that there are
opportunities to be exploited in the recycling sector while the many experienced
challenges can be overcome. The enterprises have made effort to overcome the
challenges by adopting various actions.
It is hoped that the findings of this research (section 4.4) will assist investors,
entrepreneurs, authorities and policy makers on maximizing on the opportunities in the
recycling sector through offering remedial actions to support this sector while promoting
sound environmental management practices.
Publisher
University of Nairobi