Bamako City Council has approved the construction of a solid waste-to-energy plant in Bamako district, the home to the capital and largest city of Mali.
The facility will be built by Energy Solution Systèmes and it will initially inject 40 MW of electricity into the grid of Energie du Mali SA (EDM-SA), the West African country’s company responsible for the production, transportation, and distribution of energy in the country as well as the distribution of water.
A solution to waste management in Bamako
In addition to the production of electricity, the project will also provide the beginning of a solution to waste management in the city.
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The Malian capital alone produces around 17,000 tonnes of plastic waste per annum. The waste is incinerated in open (and often indiscriminate) dumps or left in the open without any proper management system in the six councils of the district.
This can be a source of groundwater contamination/pollution, methane emissions, and the attraction of flies and mosquitoes that transmit diseases to people living near the dumps. 1
Camara Fatoumata Traoré, the first deputy mayor of Bamako district said that the council will also acquire two dump trucks as part of the decentralized cooperation with the metropolis of Lyon, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of France.
The least discussed form of sustainable power generation in the world
Waste to energy (WtE) is probably the world’s least discussed form of sustainable power generation, attracting much less attention than wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, or even tidal energy.
However, WtE projects have been successful in Europe and have not escaped the notice of ambitious investors who believe the technology could also work for Africa. 1
As Europe’s WtE market approaches saturation, Africa is an obvious next step.
