Forty-three years of waste, in the open

Buterere and Mubone have taken Bujumbura's waste since 1983 and 2009. Nothing is sorted, nothing is capped, and leachate drains toward the Lake Tanganyika basin.

1983

First site opened

2009

Second opened, still active

≈730,000 t

Estimated historic stock

35–40k t

Arriving each year

The site over time

Scrub through forty-eight years

A reconstruction of the mass deposited across both sites, from opening in 1983 to planned remediation. Drag the slider — or rotate the terrain itself.

1983

First site opens

Buterere begins taking Bujumbura's waste. No lining, no cover, no separation — the practice that every later tonne inherits.

0 t in place, estimated

Drag the terrain to rotate. Indicative reconstruction, from opening dates and estimated stock.

Composition

What the stream is actually made of

Select a fraction to see what the programme does with it. The organic share is measured on site; the others are indicative until the pilot-phase characterisation campaign.

On the ground

The site, the city, the collection

The images marked below will be replaced with photographs of Buterere itself as soon as they are available.

A landfill working face seen from the air — An unlined, uncapped landfill — the condition the programme ends.

A municipal waste collection truck working a city street — Collection: the link that determines everything after it.

See how the system works