Story by Aifheli Mudau
RESIDENTS of Beitbridge have begun forming volunteer cleaning clubs in response to a worsening waste management crisis that has left streets littered with refuse and drainage systems blocked, raising public health and environmental concerns.
Frustration has been growing among residents who say persistent garbage accumulation, particularly during the rainy season, has led to flooding in residential areas and increased health risks. Many say the situation has eroded confidence in the municipality’s ability to effectively manage waste.“As residents of Beitbridge we are realising that there is a lot of garbage here, which is why we ended up forming some cleaning clubs that will assist our communities to be clean, though it is voluntary work. The situation here is getting out of hand.
“Garbage is blocking these drainage systems causing water to flow to houses. The Environmental Management Authority(EMA) and Municipality of Beitbridge should try by all means to tighten their laws and arrest people who just throw rubbish everywhere,” residents said.
The local authority is considering a special levy to manage the waste, with EMA calling for inclusive responsibility in waste management.
“As EMA we continue to call for the adoption of the best practices in waste management putting much emphasis on local authorities really taking the lead in providing waste management as an obligatory service to residents especially now that we are in the rain season as poor waste management can compromise the health of the public and environment,” EMA’s Environmental Education and Publicity Manager, Mrs Amkela Sidange noted.
“We have an issue of littering in this town and we attribute most of the litter to our transit population because we have a transit population of around ten thousand people every day and these people some of them go to shop in South Africa in the evening they come back to Zimbabwe to our ranks to our bus stops and they re package those things, yes we are responding by putting out our teams from 6 am to 4 pm so that we deal with the litter along the highway. We are trying our best. We have also written to our parent Ministry of Local government to request a special levy on the transact population,” Beitbridge Municipality Town Clerk, Mr Loud Ramakgapola said.
The government under National Development Strategy 2 targets to continue improving service delivery across all communities.
