STAFF WRITER
HWANGE Local Board (HLB) is working on coming up with environmentally conscious initiatives aimed at reducing rampant littering in its area of jurisdiction, an official said.
HLB environment health technician Nqobile Ndelaphi Mabhena said the local authority will conduct a Solid Waste Characterisation, Quantification and Management study as part of its efforts to improve cleanliness of its environment.
“We want to conduct a Waste Characterisation, Quantification and Management study that will ascertain the type and amount of waste generated in our area of jurisdiction,” he said.
Mabhena said the Solid Waste Characterisation, Quantification and Management study would enable the local authority to formulate an Integrated Solid Waste Management (ISWM) plan.
“The study will inform planning of waste management through the crafting of the ISWM plan that will include the participation of the community which is the waste generator. We can’t craft the ISWM plan when we don’t know the type of waste we are producing and the quantities,” he said.
ISWM is a comprehensive waste prevention, recycling, composting, and disposal program.
An effective ISWM system considers how to prevent, recycle, and manage solid waste in ways that most effectively protect human health and the environment.
“We have included the Solid Waste, Characterisation, Quantification and Management study as well as the ISWM in our 2021 Budget,” said Mabhena.
HLB has over the years made numerous initiatives towards effective solid waste disposal. In 2012, the local authority provided most households in its area of jurisdiction with refuse receptacles as part of its efforts to guard against littering.
“The refuse receptacles that we distributed in 2012 are now worn out. So people are no longer having proper refuse receptacles and are resorting to using sacks and these are not user friendly. We will have to put something into our budget for the procurement refuse receptacles,” said Mabhena.
Of late the local authority has been battling to curb illegal solid waste dumping which has been on the increase in residential areas and along main roads.
As a way of discouraging this malpractice, HLB introduced an illegal solid waste dumping whistle blower facility whereby it rewards anyone who reports an individual or organisation for littering.
“At times we concentrate on door to door household refuse collection instead of clearing illegal dumpsites. We have to attend to illegal dumpsites and do general cleaning of the streets as well. It serves no purpose to collect from the households when the streets are dirty,” he said.
He however, said the local authority had significantly improved in households refuse collection.
HLB has been participating in the national clean-up campaign since its launch by President Mnangagwa in 2018.
“We had a very good mobilisation strategy before the advent of Covid-19. However, after the outbreak it became very difficult to mobilise people. We have lost touch with most of our community members who we used to mobilise for the clean-up exercises…,” said Mabhena.
He further commended organisations that have assisted the local authority during the clean-up campaign.
One such organisation, which has pledged to assist HLB in addressing environmental imperatives.
Green Shango Environment Trust was established at the backdrop of rampant and unprecedented levels of environmental degradation and massive pollution of air, water and communities.
HLB town secretary Pastor Mdlalose said the local authority’s waste management efforts were in-line with the Service Level Benchmarking (SLB) whose main thrust is to identify service level gaps at all urban local authorities.
“Our efforts to eradicate rampant solid waste dumping are in-line with the SLB programme, which encourages local authorities to embrace waste management and various initiatives,” he said.
SLB is a process whereby urban local authorities peer review each other on water supply, wastewater (sewerage) management and solid waste (refuse) management, roads and public safety and corporate governance.
SLB is being implemented in all 32 urban areas though an iterative, interactive and participatory process of service level data gathering, analysis and a peer review mechanism to analyse service levels against agreed benchmarks. Source Hwange Newsletter
