The Sunday News
Sharon Chimenya, Masvingo Correspondent
THE Environmental Management Agency (EMA) is planning to establish temporary dumpsites in all wards in Masvingo to help the local authority, which has been struggling to collect refuse.
Council has been facing a number of challenges, among them constant equipment breakdowns and shortage of fuel, resulting in erratic services in refuse collection.
So dire is the situation in the city that council is using one of its tipper trucks to collect refuse around the city’s 10 wards.
Out of three compactors, only two are operating and are not reliable as they are always having breakdowns.
EMA Masvingo provincial manager Mr Milton Muusha, in an interview on the sidelines of the monthly national clean-up exercise in Masvingo last week, said this year the environmental body is partnering the local authority to set up temporary dumping sites to avoid people disposing litter at undesignated places.
“We are working with council and this year we are going to come up with two waste temporary disposal points for communities.
“Before the council vehicles come to collect because of the challenges they will be facing, people will have a safe place to dispose their waste.
“People should find areas that are safe to dispose where council will come and collect. We understand that council has challenges of collecting waste due to breakdowns but still we should keep our environment clean.”
He said because of increased packaging of goods across the manufacturing sector, there was an increase in the number of waste which is choking the environment.
“The economy we are living in worldwide produces much waste, most of our things are now packaged so that waste is overwhelming the local authorities in managing it, that’s why we find garbage accumulating at street corners and we are saying let’s come out and assist our local authorities in keeping the environment clean.”
Mr Muusha said since the beginning of the clean-up campaign the communities have been responding positively with the numbers doubling almost every month and despite the Covid-19 disturbances people were cleaning in their vicinities. Chairperson of the Masvingo Urban Recycling Apex Committee Ms Florence Chiwera said that they were benefitting a lot from collecting litter as they were educated on recycling and waste management.
“We have benefitted a lot from the initiative. At first, we were just cleaning up the garbage and pilling up for council to collect but we were later educated by different organisations that we can make money out of litter by selling some of it to material recycling companies,” she said.
