Walk through Bamenda after a busy market day and the waste challenge is difficult to miss.
Plastic bottles, sachets, food remains, cartons and other discarded materials accumulate around trading areas and along some roadsides. Some eventually find their way into gutters, streams and drainage channels.
Then the rains come.
What was an ordinary piece of rubbish can become part of a much bigger urban problem.
A blocked drain carries less water. A culvert filled with waste loses capacity. A stream obstructed by discarded materials can overflow more easily.
For a city already confronting flooding, the way Bamenda manages its waste is therefore directly connected to the way it manages water, infrastructure and public safety.
But there is another question that deserves equal attention.
What if the waste choking Bamenda's drainage systems could instead become an economic resource?
Recent developments in the North West suggest that the answer may not be purely theoretical.
The recent launch by Bamenda II Mayor Chenwi Peter of a multi-billion waste management scheme provides an important development in the city's response to the problem.
The initiative places waste management on the agenda as a substantial urban investment rather than treating it simply as an occasional clean-up exercise.
That distinction matters.
Bamenda is growing. Its population is producing more waste through households, markets, restaurants, businesses, construction and other activities.
The question is no longer whether the city produces waste. It is whether the city has a system capable of collecting, transporting, processing and disposing of that waste in a manner that keeps pace with urban growth.
A serious waste management scheme could become an important part of that response.
But the ultimate measure of success should not only be how much waste is collected.
It should also be what happens to the waste afterwards.
Does it simply move from streets to a dumping site?
Or can part of it be recovered, recycled, reused and transformed into products that generate income and employment?
That is where developments elsewhere in the region become relevant.
In neighbouring Tubah and farther away in Nkambe, discarded plastic bottles are reportedly being transformed into pavement blocks.
The idea is simple but significant.
A material that might otherwise end up in a gutter, stream or roadside dumping site becomes an input for infrastructure.
The environmental benefit is obvious. But the economic argument may be even more important.
Collection requires workers.
Sorting requires workers.
Processing requires skills and equipment.
Production creates another layer of employment.
Installation creates additional opportunities.
What begins as waste can therefore support an entire chain of economic activity.
This is the kind of thinking Bamenda needs if it is serious about becoming a future-fit city.
The question should not simply be, “How do we remove rubbish from our streets?”
It should also be, “How much economic value can we recover from what we throw away?”
This is where the waste discussion in Bamenda needs to evolve.
For years, waste has largely been treated as something that must be collected and taken away.
A future-fit city should think in terms of a circular economy.
Plastic can become construction material. Organic waste can become compost. Paper and cardboard can be recovered. Metals can be recycled. Glass can be reused or processed.
Not everything will be economically viable, and not every material can simply be recycled locally.
But the principle is worth pursuing.
Waste generated in Bamenda does not necessarily have to remain waste.
Some of it can become an input for another economic activity.
That could create opportunities for young entrepreneurs, women's groups, cooperatives, informal waste collectors and small and medium-sized enterprises.
It could also create a new relationship between councils and the private sector.
Instead of seeing waste collection only as a cost to the municipality, part of the system could become a source of economic activity.
Markets could be among the first places where this approach is tested at scale.
A busy market generates different forms of waste every day. Vegetable sellers produce organic waste. Food vendors produce food remains. Consumers discard plastic packaging and bottles. Traders generate cardboard and other materials.
Instead of mixing everything together, markets could progressively introduce separation at source.
Organic waste could be collected separately.
Plastic bottles could be channelled to recycling or pavement production.
Cardboard, metal and other recoverable materials could enter appropriate collection chains.
Such a system would require containers, collection schedules, market management, public education and enforcement.
But it would also create an opportunity to demonstrate that waste management can be both a public service and an economic activity.
There is an immediate reason for Bamenda to take this seriously.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development recently warned residents against dumping household waste and construction debris in streets, gutters, streams and drainage systems, particularly as the city faces flooding risks.
The warning is a reminder that waste management cannot be separated from flood resilience.
The city can construct roads, bridges, culverts and drainage channels, but their effectiveness can be compromised when waste is repeatedly deposited in them.
This is why the waste question belongs within the wider Future Fit Bamenda conversation.
A city cannot become resilient when its infrastructure is constantly being undermined by the way it handles waste.
And it cannot expect citizens to keep drainage channels clean if reliable waste collection services are unavailable.
Responsibility must therefore operate on both sides.
Residents must stop using public infrastructure as dumping grounds.
Councils and waste management operators must provide practical alternatives.
Businesses and markets must take greater responsibility for the waste they generate.
And authorities must enforce existing regulations consistently.
Can the North West build a regional waste economy?
The examples emerging in Bamenda II, Tubah also raise a bigger question.
Should waste management continue to be treated separately by individual councils, or could the North West begin developing a more connected waste economy?
Bamenda produces waste at a much larger scale than many smaller communities. Nearby councils have land, agricultural activities, markets, enterprises and other potential users of recycled or recovered materials.
There could therefore be opportunities for collaboration.
One council may specialise in collection.
Another may develop processing capacity.
Private enterprises could transform recovered materials into construction products.
Agricultural producers could use composted organic waste.
Training institutions could develop technical skills for recycling and waste processing.
Such an approach would require planning, investment, regulation and reliable markets for recycled products.
But it could also create an entirely new layer of economic activity around a problem the region already has.
There is, however, a danger in celebrating individual initiatives without asking whether they can last.
A waste management project can launch impressively and still fail if collection systems collapse, equipment is not maintained, financing dries up or residents are not integrated into the system.
Likewise, recycling projects need dependable supplies of recyclable materials, appropriate technology, quality control and customers willing to buy the final products.
The challenge for Bamenda is therefore to move from isolated interventions to a functioning system.
The multi-billion waste management initiative in Bamenda II will need to demonstrate measurable results.
The conversion of plastic bottles into pavement blocks in Tubah will need to show that such production can be sustained and expanded.
And the city as a whole will need to create the conditions for waste entrepreneurs to operate successfully.
That means infrastructure, regulation, investment, skills and markets.
The future-fit Bamenda should not aspire merely to have fewer piles of rubbish.
It should aspire to have a waste management system that protects its drains, reduces flooding risks, improves public spaces and creates economic opportunities.
That is a much more ambitious objective.
Imagine a city where traders know exactly where to take different categories of waste.
Where plastic bottles are collected instead of thrown into gutters.
Where young people can build businesses around collection and recycling.
Where organic waste from markets is processed rather than left to rot in public spaces.
Where recycled materials contribute to the construction of pavements and other infrastructure.
Where councils measure not only the amount of waste collected, but also the amount recovered and converted into useful products.
That would represent a fundamental shift in how Bamenda thinks about waste.
It would move the city from a culture of disposal towards a culture of recovery and reuse.
And that is the kind of shift a growing city needs.
Future Fit Questions
Can Bamenda II's new waste management scheme become a model for a wider city-wide system?
Can the experiences of Tubah in transforming plastic bottles into pavement blocks be adapted and expanded in Bamenda?
Can councils create incentives for young entrepreneurs and private businesses to invest in recycling and waste recovery?
Can markets become organised collection and recycling points rather than major sources of unmanaged waste?
Can Bamenda integrate waste management into its flood resilience strategy?
And can the North West move towards a regional waste economy in which rubbish is treated not simply as something to dispose of, but as a potential source of jobs, enterprise and infrastructure?
These are no longer abstract questions.
The first pieces of the answer are already beginning to appear.
Bamenda II is putting major resources behind waste management. Tubah is showing that discarded plastic can be transformed into something useful.
The next step is to connect the dots.
Because a future-fit Bamenda should not simply ask how to keep its streets clean.
It should ask how to turn what the city throws away into what the city needs.
By Bakah Derick for Hilltopvoices Web
Photos by Mathias Ako'a Tah
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