City Of Harare | District level waste management initiative to be launched

District level waste management initiative to be launched By Denise Gondo Harare will soon launch a district level waste management initiative meant to make sure that all illegal dumpsites are cleared. Aptly titled “Chenesa Harare”, the operation shall be managed at the district offices with resources availed to make sure the programme is a success. Mayor, Cllr Jacob Mafume said the programme will be done simultaneously across the city. “The operation shall be based at district offices and funds will be allocated to the designated areas,” said Cllr Mafume. He said this is to ensure that the council district offices are able to hire localities. “The first stage of this operation is to clear the number of dump sites that have sprawled in Harare. “We have over 600 illegal dump sites that have accumulated waste in the suburb areas” he said. “As council, we have authorised that funds be released to district offices whereby the officers, stakeholders including the residents and others within the community who can supply trucks and front-end loaders for hire among others. “We will be releasing not less than USD$2000 to every district office to enable hiring of localities depending on the size of the ward” Cllr Mafume says. Through this step, the waste management sector will be able to deal with illegal dump sites. Cllr Mafume was quick to add that the operation requires own equipment that council has been purchasing and repairing. “At the moment the waste management sector is working with only 20 compactors and there is need for addition in order to deal with the waste on a week to week basis. “For a better turn around, council is going to create waste management stations to avoid the long journeys to Pomona that compactors are exposed to. “The furthest distance a truck can travel from a suburb to Pomona can be 200km to and from and that is a whole journey in itself. “These intermediate waste management stations will enable council to use tipper trucks to move waste to Pomona dump site,” he said. Recently the waste management division has managed to purchase 10 tipper trucks but there is need for more as Harare is now expanding. Council is also budgeting for skip bins which shall be installed at strategic areas in and around the city. “Currently we have been using smaller dumpsters and we have asked our manufacturers to make them large. “This ensures daily refuse collection as there will be trucks moving these new litter bins which shall be placed around the city centre. He said council will also deal with the policy issues which shall be addressed soon.