Sierra Leone is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. Its capital, Freetown, saw an estimated one million people migrate into the conurbation in just eight years while a viscous civil war unfolded across this small West African state. The evidence of an underdeveloped waste and sewage system virtually collapsing under the strain of overpopulation is all too obvious, even to the casual visitor (and there’s not many of them despite some glorious tropical beaches).

But this spring, Freetown welcomed a set of visitors that was anything but casual: A group of waste managers from the UK answered a call for help from local charity Klin Salon.

Klin Salon, a Freetown-based social enterprise offering small-scale waste management services, had been in contact with Richard Littlehales, who runs a company that organises volunteer projects in developing countries, and Stuart Henshaw, a waste management professional who works for Integrated Skills and got involved when his daughter visited Sierra Leone with Littlehales’ organisation. Littlehales and Henshaw gathered 12 waste management professionals from across the UK to donate their collective experience and visit Freetown to experience the situation on the ground before developing a longer-term relationship with the city.

The British Council got involved and as part of the deal asked that the group provide educational sessions for some local schools. “The youth of Freetown were perhaps the most astute and rewarding audience we had to face in our entire visit,” says Ruth Llewellyn, a specialist in events recycling with Cylch, the Wales Community Recycling Network.

She continues: “Our first visit, however, was to the city dumps – hardly a tourist destination, but at the same time a hive of social entrepreneurship.”

The two city dumps are the final destination for most of the city’s waste. “One was across the bay from our hotel,” says Llewellyn. “There was no fence or demarcation, it was literally a very large pile of mixed waste rolling down to the shore.” The other site is home to several thousand squatter shacks built on the rising waste.