Zimpapers Logo

The drafting of a tougher law on littering, targeting the introduction of deposits on all drink bottles and cans and on takeaway containers, is an innovation whose time has come, since simple persuasion is simply not working.

A glance at the rubbish thrown on road verges by motorists who do not wish to mess up their car by bagging rubbish to dump in the nearest bin when they stop, and the rubbish that accumulates in gutters and storm water drains, shows that the authorities are looking at the right targets.

The idea does work. Japan uses it. The rich might not bother collecting their deposits, but there are reports that elderly pensioners collect the containers, claim the deposits and use the money to buy the odd small luxury that the pension does not really cover.

It is a fact that a lot of people buy a drink in a bottle made of polyethylene terephthalate, usually known as PET, down the contents and then chuck the bottle on the roadside. Cans also used to mount up, but these days the plastic bottle are more common.

In former times, such as 20 years ago or less, almost all alcoholic and convenience drinks in Zimbabwe were sold in returnable glass bottles, and since buyers had to pay a deposit these bottles were not dumped, or if they were left on the side of a road or pavement someone would pick them up to claim the deposit. So we had no piles of bottles and cans.

Takeaways were far rarer, and were not packed in plastic or cardboard containers.

Many items were sold in a paper bag, which while still producing roadside garbage was far more likely to break down and rot away quite quickly, and a lot more quickly than heavy cardboard, especially cardboard printed with modern inks, let alone plastics.

The deposit system may well be opposed by those who make the drinks and those who sell the takeaway food, since they will need to have some sort of redemption system, regardless of who brings in the containers and who wants the money.

Since the takeaway containers and the cans and non-glass bottles cannot be reused for their original purpose, this will involve a system of careful sorting.

It may well be possible that bags of sorted plastic and sorted cardboard will have some value as raw materials, and here those responsible for collecting the deposits and then paying them out may well be able to cover a decent fraction of their expenses, if not all of them, and a new industry of collecting and processing this scrap will evolve.

Those who wish to see the deposit system work could well ensure greater support from those who will have to charge the deposits by getting innovative business people telling us how much they will pay for a tonne of reasonably clean plastic bottles or once-used cardboard containers so that there is ammunition to use against the objectors.

One problem of recycling at present is that most people are totally unprepared to sort their garbage, or for that matter even bag it properly, and just mix everything together in a container waiting for the garbage truck, when it eventually comes. The deposit system will not do a lot for household garbage, but will sort most of the street garbage.

Simply getting the containers used in take away shops for food and drink off the streets will reduce littering to vastly lower levels, although not eliminate it altogether. And here we may have to look at coercion.

Most urban authorities have by-laws that allow litterbugs to be fined. But we have zero enforcement of these by-laws, so they are of zero use. You can have first class anti-litter laws and zero compliance if there is no enforcement.

Here, a group of concerned Greendale residents is showing the way. The decision by Harare City Council to collect garbage just once a fortnight from households meant that a lot decided to sneak out late at night with bags of rubbish in their boots and dump this in open spaces or along stream banks.

The group decided to be on the lookout and when they saw this happen whip out their phones and take pictures, making sure the registration number of the car being used was in the picture as well as the person dumping the garbage. Cars have been traced and the photograph is pretty good evidence.

The first person caught had to pay a fine of $100 000 to the Environmental Management Agency, which has a general overview of environmental protection, and while a couple of people escaped because it was found that they had not bothered to change the ownership details of their car when they bought it, the idea is catching on.

Greendale is already seeing noticeably less of this midnight dumping as the word gets around, so enforcement with community assistance can work.

It would work even better with a more active municipal police force mind you, but at least private citizens are taking the initiative when a depressingly bad city council declines to do so.

Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, leading the anti-litter day in Chiweshe last week, brought up the curiosity that some who dislike or oppose the Government express this dislike by throwing litter into the street.

Other sources suggest this was strengthened as a result of the anti-litter campaign. It is difficult to see the logic of how living in a pigsty can be a good idea.

There are many more productive ways of showing political opposition, including prominently collecting litter in identifiable groups.

Considering that most littering is an urban phenomenon, or along national highways, it would seem sensible that opposition leaders, who actually run many urban local authorities, intervened. A bit of competition in keeping cities clean would not be a bad idea.

But enforcement is also needed, not just cleaning up and stopping so much rubbish in the first place. Singapore, a city that was notorious for its litter, became the cleanest city in Asia and one of the cleanest in the world simply by enforcing anti-litter laws, which result in high fines.

Visitors are warned at hotels that they must use the bins as the police are on the lookout for litterbugs and will fine promptly. Active enforcement works.

Zimbabwe now appears to be moving from just trying to appeal to people’s self-interest and good nature to stop littering to more active measures, and better anti-litter laws with better enforcement will help stop littering, and measures like the deposits on the main source of street litter, the takeaway drink and food business, will help dry up the supply of rubbish.

Both need everyone’s support.