The growing waste management problem in the Kingdom of Swaziland can be seen as a symptom of many factors. Industrialisation, consumer patterns, urbanisation and population growth as well as the absence of waste management information has precluded strategic planning in the past.

This has prevented the implementation of appropriate remedial action such as changes in behavioural patterns; establishment of waste infrastructure and the development of required legislation in order to prevent, recycle and eventually handle waste that must be collected, treated and disposed.


With the increasing pressure of population growth coupled with the investments being made into economic infrastructure in peri-urban and rural areas located on Swazi Nation Land, there is an urgent need to identify appropriate means to improve waste management in these areas. This is relevant for household waste, waste from commercial nodes, as well as health care risk waste from health care facilities. This is perhaps less a technical exercise, since a range of technological approaches are already in existence world-wide; but perhaps more an institutional exercise by looking into and agreeing on suitable institutional and also financial arrangements. In 2001 a comprehensive Status Quo analysis of the current waste situation in Swaziland was compiled.