The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube, Online News Editor
COWDRAY Park residents in Bulawayo have called on the city council to address the problem of fumes emanating from the Richmond Landfill site saying this was putting them at risk of contracting air borne diseases.
Over the past few months, the local authority had to deal with a number of fire outbreaks at the landfill site, which is popularly known as Ngozi Mine. In May, fire and ambulance services department had to carry out a week long exercise to extinguish a fire at the site after Cowdray Park residents complained that the smoke from the fire was affecting them.
On Wednesday last week, a Sunday News crew visited the suburb with the residents revealing that despite the local authority’s claims that the problem had been resolved, it was still persisting.
“This issue is now more of a daily occurrence in the suburb, we have tried to engage the local authority but there seems to be no permanent solution,” said a resident who identified himself as Mr Nkosi Zulu.
Cowdray Park councillor Kidwell Mujuru also confirmed that the fumes were now fast becoming a health hazard.
He said residents met council officials last Friday where they demanded that the local authority relocate the landfill site as it was becoming a health hazard.
“What happens is that squatters who stay at the landfill will be scavenging for scrap metal thus they burn other refuse so that they can easily access this scrap metal. What they do not realise is that some of the refuse include plastics that emit chemicals which exposes them and residents to air borne infections.
During the meeting with residents, council officials stated that they would require a minimum of five years to relocate the landfill but they then requested residents to give them six months for them to have fully rectified the problem,” said Clr Mujuru.
He said another perception from the residents was that since council was aware that the squatters were looking for scrap metal, the local authority could also take advantage and use this as another revenue stream by recycling the scrap metal themselves. Contacted for comment, the local authority’s corporate communications manager, Mrs Nesisa Mpofu said they were aware of the problem of the fumes.
“Fires at the Richmond Landfill are started by informal recycling groups for various reasons including burning other materials in order to expose metal waste and sometimes to spite each other in fights over value waste. The City of Bulawayo is working flat out to douse the fire by covering the waste and fire with gravel.
“Council is very concerned about this illegal practice and has engaged the salvaging community over the issue but unfortunately the problem keeps recurring. Council has engaged its regulatory partners such as Environmental Management Agency (EMA) and the Zimbabwe Republic Police on the best way to prevent such recurrence.
“The City of Bulawayo has also been engaging the local community of Cowdray Park Section 8 Residents Committee where a meeting was held at Tategulu Primary School. From the residents’ concerns, the City of Bulawayo team explained, showed that Council is able to maintain the landfill well and was working flat out to overcome the present hurdles so that there are no fires in the future,” said Mrs Mpofu.
She said the local authority was implementing a dual monitoring system at the landfill site to guard against pollution.
“The system comprises active and passive environmental monitoring. Active monitoring involves collection of water samples from six off-site monitoring wells that are dotted around the landfill and collection of leachate from the leachate pond for laboratory analysis. Passive monitoring involves checking of signs of environmental stress from the flora and fauna that is in and around the landfill,” she said.
