Lilongwe Solid Waste Management System

Lilongwe, Malawi's fast-growing capital, is pressing against the limits of an ageing open dumpsite that cannot keep pace with urban expansion. The Lilongwe Water Board, under the World Bank-financed Lilongwe Water and Sanitation Project, set out to build a climate-resilient waste management system for over one million inhabitants.

Libanconsult led the feasibility studies and detailed design assignment between 2023 and 2024.

The work produced a strategic SWM master plan covering the full collection and disposal value chain, then feasibility studies and detailed designs for a controlled landfill (CET), a sorting and composting centre and the rehabilitation of an existing landfill. It also included climate resilience assessment, waste characterisation and quantification studies, an Environmental and Social Management Plan, and tender documents for construction.

Lilongwe holds a bankable, climate-resilient investment package spanning collection, sorting, composting and engineered disposal - a defined route out of uncontrolled dumping for a city of more than a million people.