Avondale street goes for eight weeks without refuse collection

27 Aug, 2021 - 00:08 0 Views
Avondale street goes for eight weeks without refuse collection Uncollected rubbish.

Suburban

Residents of Down Road in Avondale have gone for eight weeks without their refuse being collected and are contemplating dumping the uncollected garbage at Mt Pleasant district office.

Diana Nherera  Suburban Reporter

A resident from that road said garbage is just piling and rotting by their gates. 

He said the City of Harare normally collects every Tuesday but for the past two months the municipality has not been collecting garbage from their houses. 

A similar concern has also been raised by residents living along Lomagundi Road (now called Nemakonde Way) in the same suburb.

A resident from Nemakonde Way said uncollected garbage is also piling and some residents are now dumping the rubbish in the newly installed street bins. 

The street bins were, however, installed as a convenience for passers-by to have somewhere to place litter while walking along the road.  

Along Nemakonde Way, residents have gone for three weeks without garbage collections.

“I’m so frustrated with lack of refuse collection by council along Lomagundi Road. 

“Right now we have one of the HCC (Harare City Council) employees who picks up litter along Lomagundi Road, burning the trash to try and reduce the quantities. 

“Unfortunately the refuse is mixed so the organic material does not burn especially near the bus stop (opposite the TelOne office). 

“The other problem is that the small bin which was put close to the bus stop at TelOne, instead of helping out has actually become a problem. 

“This is because people now just come to dump their uncollected waste which also includes diapers which, when the HCC guys try burning the stuff, it does not get burnt. 

“Also, it seems the small bin is not installed in a user- friendly way for collection by the municipality,” said the resident. 

Residents complained that the City of Harare workers were not responding to their calls for collections.

“All in all, the waste management is really terrible.  When you enquire from the responsible person for the ward, you don’t get a response. It’s so draining especially when you are paying your bills,” said one of the residents.

Residents living along King George Road, also in Avondale, said garbage has not been collected from their properties.  

“There are huge piles of bags. This is totally unacceptable.

“We are fed up,” vented a resident from King George Road. 

Residents along Bedford Road said they have to clean up the mess left by dogs and people going through the rubbish in search of food left overs and recyclable materials.

Garbage has not been collected for the past three weeks from houses along Bedford Road, according to the residents. 

“We have to tidy every day as animals and vendors mess it up nightly,” said a resident on Bedford Road. 

Contacted for comment, City of Harare principal communications officer, Mr Innocent Ruwende said the city’s refuse fleet was depleted hence the failure to efficiently collect waste from homes.

 He said they hoped the situation would improve in the future as the local authority was in the process of repairing some of the broken down refuse collection trucks. Mr Ruwende did not give timelines as to when they expected the trucks to be back on the road. 

“We have a depleted fleet. Today we are working on 17 and at the weekend, we are expecting more.

“We recently procured spares for our trucks,” he said.

In neighbouring Emerald Hill, the recently launched Emerald Hill Recycling Centre, which is based a Blue Lagoon shopping centre, has been helping residents to reduce the amount of waste from their households as they separate and sort recyclable materials which they take to the centre while the remainder is then taken by City of Harare waste collectors. 

According to Ms Mary Wazara, who is in charge of the recycling project, they started the initiative in 2019 with five households in Emerald Hill offering free door-to-door collections for recyclable materials only.

“The number of households rose to 320 extending to Marlborough, Mt Pleasant and Alex Park by December 2020 and we realised that it was not sustainable anymore to run the one truck we had to cover everyone in a day.

“That’s what gave birth to Emerald Hill Recycling Centre after approval from the COH (City of Harare)’s department of waste management working with our area co-ordinator, Trish Mukudu.

“This was very well received by the Ward 7 community and has attracted interest from other communities who are requesting for a similar set up in their neighbourhoods,” she said.

Ms Wazara said they are consulting with council to have a similar facility in Greendale.

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