TECH BREAK: Enter Jiji Safi, an app that makes light work of urban garbage management

With the mounds of garbage lying uncollected in many urban areas, imagine what would happen if county governments could manage it better at the tap of a button. Sounds far-fetched?

Not really, because 23-year-old Abraham Mwaura, a fourth-year student at the Technical University of Mombasa, has created an application known as Jiji Safi, an integrated smart garbage management system.

“This idea is compatible mainly with the concept of smart cities. Smart waste management avoids having waste pile up, which makes disposing of it difficult,” says Mwaura.

The app gives alerts as soon as a dustbin is full and can also be used to coordinate collection.

 “Waste management is poor, especially in Mombasa and other towns in Kenya. My aim is to help monitor the capacity of the bins and make the work of the garbage collectors easier,” he adds.

The app, which senses the level of garbage in the bin and alerts the relevant authorities, can also help residents  better manage domestic waste.

 “The first page of the android application is displayed with a user interface. The user portal can be used by people who need to have their garbage collected daily. It gives them directions to, and the coordinates to, the nearest unfilled waste bin,” says Mwaura. 

When the bin is full, the app relays this information as well as its location to the control centre so that it can send a garbage collection truck. And as soon as the bin is emptied, it notifies the control centre.

“This helps monitor the collection. It can be integrated with a payment system as the number of trips and details of every driver and garbage truck is available in the server,” says Mwaura.

The driver’s portal on the application has a button for  drivers who collect waste in  specific areas.

So what motivated Mwaura to develop the app?

“As a first year student in 2014, I expected to find a clean town but living in Kisauni proved the opposite. The was too much garbage lying around. Many parts of Mombasa lacked waste-collection services. That made me think of a way to  make my city clean,” he says.

The idea can be implemented on a large or small scale. It will not only create employment for the youth, but also save revenue used in garbage collection. I invite environmental authorities and county governments, especially of Mombasa, to adopt the system,” says Mwaura.

 “The Technical University of Mombasa is working towards  byintegrating it  with its garbage collection system. The County Government of Mombasa has also pledged to use it,” says the industrial microbiology and bio technology student.