- Plastic waste from thousands of bottles, cans and other garbage thrown into the Lake Kivu , which stretches some 90 km along the border between the DRC and Rwanda threatens to block the turbines of The Ruzizi dam.
Lake Kivu flows towards the Ruzizi River that feeds the largest hydroelectric plant in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Plastic waste from thousands of bottles, cans and other garbage thrown into the lake, which stretches some 90 km along the border between the DRC and Rwanda threatens to block the turbines of The Ruzizi dam.
South Kivu national electricity company (Snel) official said that the mountainous terrain and rainy climate also became a hindrance. The accumulated plastic waste of 14 meters in the installations have to be cleaned from the bottom of the river to prevent the turbines from being clogged and the towns in the region from being deprived of electricity. In January, one of the four units of the power plant, damaged by the waste, was shut down leading to a deficit of 6.3 megawatts.A generator failure was caused at the Ruzizi 2 power plant, also by plastic waste. Together these both issues have created a total of 20 MW deficit for the distribution network.
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