Zimpapers Logo

GARBAGE is a problem in the streets of all our towns and cities, and alongside most roads, and Buhera South legislator Cde Joseph Chinotimba drew attention to the mess this week with his one-man clearance operation in Mbare.The problem is two-fold.

First garbage collection is not perfect.

Harare City Council has made huge strides, as anyone who remembers what things were like a few years ago, but collection is sometimes delayed, and even a day’s delay can allow a pile-up that is not acceptable.

The city street sweepers, who operate in the central business district, do an incredible job but are overwhelmed by the quantities.

In the central business district and around some suburban shopping centres there are now a bare minimum of bins in which passers-by can dump their rubbish.

But these are not always emptied or at least emptied frequently enough and so they overflow, which defeats the purpose.

In some areas where a lot of garbage is produced daily by the roadside, such as that section of Mbare tackled by Cde Chinotimba, something more than a couple of empty 200 litre drums is needed.

The city has placed in some areas large skips that can hold a lot of rubbish and be loaded onto a truck for emptying, and perhaps something along these lines can be extended to other areas.

The second problem is the way far too many people create a public nuisance by just dumping their rubbish anywhere.

A short stroll anywhere in Harare and any other town will reveal discarded take-away containers, empty plastic bottles and cans along with banana skins and other debris just scattered along the side of the road where people chuck them when they have used them.

If people did not throw garbage into the streets there would be no garbage in the streets; it is as simple as that.

If all garbage was properly bagged or binned, and placed when and where it was supposed to be placed for the collection trucks, then it would not be lying in the streets.

And if the city council collected it when scheduled then it would not be ripped to shreds by wandering dogs or rummaged through by scavengers.

Cde Chinotimba suggested a monthly clean-up day.

With respect this is an emergency procedure, not what should be happening in a proper system.

For a start, leaving garbage rotting for a month until the next clean-up day just creates more problems and does not tackle the root of the problem, that the garbage should not be there in the first place.

We can have clean cities and clean roads quite easily.

The authorities can ensure that there are adequate public bins where litter can be placed.

Many of these could be sponsored by companies and the like although the city would have to have plans for emptying them as frequently as possible.

Near markets and other high-garbage areas skips or a similar system could be used. The process of improved rubbish collection needs to be improved further.

And then people have to be taught not to throw their filth onto the streets. We have laws on the books, but these are not enforced. They should be. If a pedestrian, or stall holder, or motorist dumps rubbish then they should be fined. Do this often enough then people will stop dumping. Even better would be to create a culture, such as Namibia has, where people are ashamed to throw things into the street.

While Cde Chinotimba has highlighted the problem, and that is part of his job, the thrust of solutions must be to avoid the mess in the first place, rather than looking at ways of cleaning it up later.