Move to clean city’s rivers

There is water everywhere, but thirst scorches the throats of Nairobi residents. With nine rivers flowing through the city and its suburbs, there should be enough water for its three million residents.

However, years of unchecked pollution have turned them into death traps flowing with poison. Studies show that these rivers, which form what is known as the Nairobi river basin, are highly polluted with waste from industries.

An initiative to clean up the rivers has dragged on for eight years. Launched in 1999, Nairobi River Basin Project brought together people convinced that the rivers could again flow with clean water to quench the city.

But now, there is excitement in the initiative, coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep), as industries could be forced to stop discharging waste into the rivers. This follows the publication, last year, of a raft of regulations prohibiting discharge of waste by industries, failure to which they face fines of up to Sh500,000 (see separate story).

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