4 Companies Shut Down Over Discharge of Untreated Chemicals Into Nairobi River

The National Environment Management Authority (Nema), in its continued effort to clean up the Nairobi River, has shut down four companies in Nairobi’s Industrial Area for discharging life-threatening waste into the Capital’s river.

Modern Lithographic (K) Ltd, Apex Limited, Thorlite Kenya Ltd, and Kamongo Paper Recycling Company were found to be discharging harmful waste into the Nairobi River despite the County’s efforts to clean up.

The NEMA Director-General Mamo B. Mamo revealed that one of the four companies shut down, Kamongo Company, did not have an efficient wastewater treatment plant.

“Kamongo Company has been discharging into the environment without treating their wastewater to the public sewer,” said Mr. Mamo.

Chloride Exide company was given instructions to ensure improvement in its manner of wastage disposal but was left open and under monitoring.

“We have given them improvement orders. We have looked at their records, air pollution emissions and we are doing further tests to ascertain whether they are in line with our regulations,” DG Mamo said.

Nema’s raid comes after the airing of an expose on a local television regarding the pollution taking place on the Nairobi River.

Authority bodies in Kenya seem to be lagging behind on their mandate and only acting up after rotting in various industries.

Nairobi River has been on the receiving end from various companies and posh estates that dispose of waste into the river including untreated sewage.

Slums have encroached into the river spaces with the dwellers disposing wastage into the river which has now changed it from the Nairobi River it used to be, priding of cool clear waters to a Nairobi Sewer.

The national environment management authority is expected to continue with the inspection of high-risk facilities in the Industrial area on 27^th August 2019 and a number of companies are expected to be shut down.

“As precautionary measures, we will be closing down facilities that do not meet the set effluent standards,” said Mr. Mamo.

The Nairobi County government has in recent times been carrying out the cleanup exercise on the Nairobi River and it is unfortunate that as the youth struggle through the waste in the river in a bid to bring back life into it, companies are directing their waste into the same river.

The World Bank through its report, “The Invisible Water Crisis”, says that about 1,000 new chemicals get into the environment every year and 80 percent of the world’s wastewater is released without treatment.