• UNCOLLECTED garbage in Lusaka.
By MIRIAM ZIMBA –
IT does not require covering long distances for one to establish the poor waste management system that is prevalent in Lusaka City.
What ideally should bear the face of a garden city, aside from being a trend-setter by virtue of being the capital city, falls far short of what Lusaka has to show.
Indiscriminate littering, heaps of uncollected garbage, and the stench from public nuisances such as public urination is something that is plain to see in Lusaka.
These are even more pronounced in the high-density areas, and some parts of the central business district.
Residents of the city and the local authority mandated to manage waste, all play the blame game and point accusing fingers at each other, instead of joining forces to institute lasting measures.
All this tends to defeat the whole essence of the Lusaka City Council (LCC)’s mission statement which states which envisages the provision of high quality services, an enabling environment, meaningful employment and advancement opportunities with stakeholder participation, in order to improve the quality of life for all those who live, work, visit or conduct business in the city of Lusaka.
But the reality on the ground is very disturbing, and calls for immediate measures to be undertaken.
LCC public relations manager Habeenzu Mulunda relates the challenge of uncollected waste in the city to lack of equipment, negative public mindset against unprecedented population growth levels over the years.
According to him, the growth of human population in the city has been exponential and has not been matched with growth in capacity for service provision by the local authority.
“Looking at the way the city has grown over the years, then you try to transpolate this in terms of the availability of resources, equipment that should correspond with the population growth, you come to the realisation that we are lacking in that area”, he explains.
Because the existence of human being cannot be totally divorced from waste generation on a daily basis, the local authority has partnered with the private sector to institute an effective waste management system.
Mr Mulunda explains that there are franchise contractors who are working in the conventional areas, while the community based enterprises operate in peri-urban areas to collect waste.
“The community based enterprises collect waste from the in what is referred to as the primary collection of waste, and place the waste in designated places where the Council does the secondary waste collection, to the landfill or dumping site, in Chunga Township
However, despite the council having developed pre-paid systems for people to subscribe to for the collection of waste, the biggest challenge the local authority is faced with is the negative attitude some members of the public towards paying for waste collection services.
According to Mr Mulunda, Lusaka city alone generates about 750 tons of waste on a daily basis, against an approximated 300 to 350 tons of waste collected per day.
This in essence means there is a shortfall of about 400 tons of uncollected garbage on a daily basis, and this is what we see as historical waste.
“Because of the amount of uncollected waste keeps accumulating each day, it becomes a very big challenge, resulting in historical waste that keeps building,” he explains.
This historical waste is what eventually makes its way into undesignated dumping sites-the streets, water drainages, and all over the central business district and residential areas.
This is because from what has been left of the collection for a day accumulates each new day, which becomes a very big challenge for both the residents and the local authority.
Mr Mulunda explains that the charges for garbage collection go towards meeting operational costs to maintain the equipment and vehicles used for waste collection.
“The local authority is not a profit making institution, the monies that we get are the monies which we plough back, we are simply custodians of the service we provide,” Mr Mulunda explains.
He also said the linear waste management system in the country posses as a challenge to effective waste management.
“This is a system in which waste is not separated into categories from the generation point, instead we have plastics, paper and all other kinds of waste bundled together, making it difficult for factories that recycle waste to separate what is required,” he explains.
“We are just getting into that kind of business here in Zambia, therefore all the waste that is generated be in paper, plastic and all, has to be taken to the landfill where we have heaps of waste, of which much of the waste there should not even get to the landfill, maybe only a small percentage of what goes to the landfill should be there in the first place,” he adds.
He is of the view that if the country had adequate industries that recycle waste into useful materials, the challenges relating to uncollected waste, would not be so pronounced.
Mr Mulunda called for the need to explore ways of financing research in this area and initiatives in order to create industries that will recycle waste and create employment.
“If we are to do this, definitely people will start seeing value in waste, as opposed to just blaming the local authority for uncollected waste,” he noted.
One of the strategies that the local authority has employed to upscale the collection of waste is their door-to-door campaign survey to establish which households have not subscribed to waste collection systems.
Within a space of two weeks in Mtendere Township where the exercise started, about 5,000 homes were inspected.
The results of this survey was disappointing because it was established most of these homes had not subscribed to any of the existing waste management systems.
“The question that begs an answer is where do these people take their waste?” he questioned.
“These are the people who just litter everywhere, we were compelled to leave notices with them, with a period attached for them to subscribe to one of the waste management systems available, now what remains to be done is to make a follow-up to ensure these people are on board,” Mr Mulunda explains.
He has however warned residents who have not yet made efforts to subscribe for waste collection systems to ensure they do so within the stipulated time frame, or risk legal actions being meted against them.
“This exercise, which began mid 2014, is on-going in all the townships, our aim is to ensure we reach as many people as possible because it is like blanket messages are not being taken seriously, until we knock at their doors”, he said.
The local authority is currently engaged with a good number of firms who have expressed interest to partner with LCC for the recycling of waste.
LCC has also reached advanced stages in their engagements with some utility companies in order to capture a wider population in and scale-up the collection of waste management revenues.
“We are encouraging companies to come on board and invest in areas of recycling in order to reduce the burden of waste in the city,” he says.
Mr Mulunda appealed to the general populace to embrace a change of mindset towards waste management, the consequences of uncollected waste as well as unlawful dumping of waste is still something that is being born by the communities.
Perhaps, with public support and positive mindset towards waste management, the local authority alongside its partners will effectively address the challenges related to waste management in the city.
