Race to sustainability: Kenya’s steps to implementing the Bamako Convention
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At the Kisumu County hospital, a heavy cloud of smoke bellows.
At the furthest corner, the red-hot flames cast a blanket of heat around the incinerator.
A designated worker occasionally opens the door to feed in coloured bags of trash collected from the hospital.
Incineration has been the primary method of medical waste disposal in Kenya. While effective at killing pathogens, traditional incineration has been flagged for releasing greenhouse gases and microplastics into the atmosphere.
In 2025, a study published in the Journal of sustainable research in Engineering found traces of microplastics in Nairobi, Ngong and Mathare rivers with a concentration of between 0.22 to 0.92 particles per litre.