By HOPE BWALYA –
MWALE
GOVERNMENT is formulating a waste management policy to provide guidelines to institutions dealing in solid waste management and those producing solid waste material.
Local Government Minister Vincent Mwale said the strategies would strengthen the economic potential in solid waste.
Mr Mwale said this in a speech read on his behalf by Local Government Permanent Secretary Amos Malupenga at a solid waste management symposium held under the theme ‘Moving from waste management to resource management within a circular economy’ in Lusaka yesterday.
“Progress is being made in developing waste management policies and strategies. Indeed the use of economic instruments and implementation of polluter-pays principles in waste management are yet to be fully realised in Zambia,” he said.
Mr Mwale said the policies would also help guide investors interested in solid waste, which could be used for several economic purposes.
He said currently, the ministry and other line ministries were looking at establishing energy production systems of waste management, a programme which would be done under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode.
Mr Mwale said the project would be piloted in Lusaka and scaled up to the Copperbelt where a feasibility study was being done by a Finnish developer who was already on site.
Meanwhile, Lusaka City Council (LCC) Health Services Committee chairperson Patrick Salubusa has said the institution had partnered with two energy companies that would recycle solid waste material into
energy.
Mr Salubusa said one of the companies; Malbro Zambia Limited would establish a waste to energy project that would produce 50 Mega Watts (MW) of electricity, of which the council was expected to avail 105,000 tonnes of solid waste annually.
He said the company had been offered 10 hectares of land in the Lusaka South Multi Facility Economic Zone (MFEZ) for the project.
Mr Salubusa named the second company as Genniz Engineering which would set up an integrated municipal solid waste to energy power plant in Chongwe District.
