Your Garbage & Potholes Campaign: The Age of Personalised Waste Management and Modernised Road Fixing in Uganda

By William Lubuulwa

Ugandans, brace yourselves. The future of environmental management is no longer an abstract policy in a dusty cabinet – it’s here, and it’s arriving on a bodaboda near you, carrying banana peels and pothole dreams.

In what experts and stand-up comedians are calling the ‘Personalized Environment Revolution,’ Uganda is entering an era where garbage knows your name, potholes remember your number plate, and trees are waiting – yes, waiting – for an apology.

Meet Your Garbage

Picture this: You are chilling at home in Najjeera, sipping on your passion fruit juice, when a sweaty bodaboda guy pulls up…instantly.

“Excuse me madam (or sir),” he says, holding up a cotton-sewn bag containing your historic treasure that went missing and is now being respectfully returned to its rightful owner. “You dropped this banana peel on Entebbe Road last Thursday at around 10:30 in the morning. We found it lonely, confused and sad. We thought it should come back to you…and that is why we have helped it to meet you again. Here is your trash.” The man pulls away at the speed with which he came, leaving you unsure of what to do next!

Fellow Ugandans, welcome to the ‘Meet Your Garbage’ Campaign, a revolutionary effort that can be spearheaded by the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) and Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), among other institutions of generous concern. The message? If you won’t take care of your trash responsibly, your trash will come back home to you.

I imagine under such a campaign, thousands of garbage-delivery bodaboda cyclists will ensure that every discarded plastic bottle, sugarcane stalk, and sneaky water sachet finds its way back to its true owner. It’s recycling, it’s justice, it is waste circularity – you know!

Case for Competing Potholes

Our roads have graduated. Once just nuisances, our potholes are now full-blown landmarks. The pothole on Sir Apollo Kaggwa Road recently trended on TikTok mbu because a boda boy fell in and came out two minutes later speaking fluent Lusoga.

In our modernised road fixing campaign, local leaders can be chauffeured through their neglected roads, armed with shovels and cameras, and encouraged to “influence” their way into fixing them. At each stop, they can be asked a question or two: “This pothole has been here for 10 years, what’s your excuse? Why don’t you do Bulungi Bwansi on the roads to fix these caves?” Then the world would see them stammer trying to get the right answers.

Officials from the Ministry of Works & Transport (MoWT) can also be enrolled into Pothole Immersion Retreats, where they can be driven through the worst stretches of the roads blindfolded and only allowed to open their eyes once a tyre bursts. Only then will they begin to do their duty. Why should we allow our roads to fight back and win?

Hug-a-Tree Day: Watering Trees with Tears

Because healing the land requires more than tarmac and tractors, Uganda should introduce ‘Hug-a-Tree Day.’ On this solemn-yet-slightly-dramatic day, citizens should be tasked to find a tree – any tree they have once mistreated, cut down, or used as a billboard stand – hug it and apologise to it. They would then be made to water it with their own tears to make amends with nature.

For instance, apologies should be like: “Forgive me, Muyembe tree. I built a kaveera kiosk under you and left many plastic bottles at your roots. I am sorry!” Others will be made to apologise for having cut down many relatives of these trees, and failing to plant new ones at the time, leading to rising temperatures.

On this day, NEMA officers should be on site, gently encouraging sniffles and ensuring every tree receives the emotional closure it deserves. With onions provided to stimulate tears, participants will be expected to cry real tears.

Plastics, Straws & Tilapia

Uganda has tried to ban plastics more times than we have tried to win AFCON. But this time, it’s serious. The coalition of NEMA, KCCA, and the MoWT should declare war on single-use plastics – especially those slippery kaveera bags and treacherous plastic straws. They are hurting our environment!

The public should be sensitised the nth time about proper environment handling. If the existing laws are hard to implement, we can come up with easy fixes, for instance, if you are caught using a plastic straw, you can be summoned to the shores of Lake Victoria to apologise to a fish. Yes, real tilapia – one that’s probably already choked on your kaveera and is now sipping algae through a straw in agony.

The Watchful Law

For those who still think littering is a harmless act of banana-peel freedom, let this be your warning: The National Environment Act, Cap. 181 is no joke. Under Section 97, the law prohibits the emptying, leaving, storing, or transporting of waste in an unsightly manner or in a way that causes nuisance to the environment. This includes everything from plastics to wrecked vehicles and aircrafts – you know, just in case you have been hiding a helicopter in your backyard.

Clauses 97(8) and 97(9) go further to slam the gavel on littering, with offenders facing a fine of up to UGX 11 million. And thanks to NEMA’s express penalty scheme, tossing trash from your car window or littering from a commercial building can now earn you a cool UGX 6 million fine – no debate.

The Wake-Up Call

Here is the real talk. Environmental management in Uganda is a decentralized function. This means the power isn’t just in the high towers and policy rooms, not even at NEMA. The power rests in your community, your LC1 office, your garbage bag, your brains, and your very own upbringing.

We beseech all Ugandans to stop littering. That banana peel you threw away might just come back to you, gift-wrapped. To our local leaders, fix our roads before they become fish ponds. Lake fish is tastier than road fish. To the big men and women in decision making offices, ride these roads using our tiny cars or taxis, and get the actual feel of the wrath of every unpaved promise – and act today, bambi. And lastly the youth, elders, politicians, market vendors, and tree-huggers in waiting: This is your environment. Defend it like your last piece of roasted chicken on that memorable Sunday evening.

We are not just fighting potholes, garbage and plastics – we are fighting for our dignity, sanity, and the future of Uganda’s economy. The campaign has been launched now, and it is in our minds. We are creating the garbage, we are creating the potholes, and are creating a tree-less Uganda!