Suburban
THE Harare Residents’ Trust (HRT) has urged the City of Harare (CoH) to adopt the Borrowdale Ratepayers and Residents Association (BRRA) waste management model for the whole city.
Peter Tanyanyiwa Suburban Reporter
The HRT said the model proposed by Borrowdale 18 residents of sharing the costs of providing essential services is worthy to be further debated and possibly adopted until the city has regained capacity to address waste management challenges in the capital city.
In an interview this week HRT director Mr Precious Shumba said the BRRA model will usher a new era in Harare as it presents a devolved waste management model.
“The proposal is that of the refuse collection revenues collected by the City of Harare, 60 percent is retained by the council for the maintenance of the refuse dumpsite and finding alternative dumping areas. The 40 percent part of the revenue is directly paid to the residents’ account overseen by the district officer and co-signed by residents. This money administered by residents is to be responsible for the maintenance of refuse collection vehicles and payment of a certain portion to refuse collectors who work for the council based at the district office. This money may also be used for other purposes related to waste management at the community level,” he said.
Mr Shumba said the BRRA proposed model entails and facilitates for the council to devolve its system so that service delivery is mostly delivered from the district offices.
“Refuse compactors and other refuse collection vehicles have to be permanently stationed at the local district office as part of operationalising the council waste management works. An integrated waste management system is necessary to ensure the smooth collection of refuse, with sorting centres to minimise dumping of materials that can be recycled at the main dumpsite. Residents managing their waste management is the best implementation model that can free more time on council officials, and significantly reduce corruption in the procurement processes,” said Mr Shumba.
Recycling has been identified as one of the strategies municipalities can adopt to reduce the amount of waste getting to dumpsites as recyclable materials such as PET bottles, plastic, cardboard boxes and glasses can be sold to recycling companies.
Food waste such as left overs and vegetable and fruit cut offs can be used to make compost for gardening.
Residents in some Harare wards such as Ward 7 in Avondale are resorting to recycling their garbage in the wake of the collapse of the City of Harare’s refuse collection service, which is seeing residents go for up to four months without a single collection.
Recently the Greendale Residents and Ratepayers Association announced plans to establish waste drop-off points where residents of Ward 9 can bring their recyclable materials while in Harare West (Marlborough and Mabelreign and the surrounding suburbs, plans are being made to use the Constituency Development Fund allocation to establish waste transfer centres for the suburbs in the constituency.
Plans are also underway to establish a waste sorting centre in Ward 8 where residents can drop their rubbish when the City of Harare is not able to do door to door collections.
Ward 8 Councillor Keith Charumbira told Suburban that the waste sorting centre will be built along Boundary Road in Highlands to serve residents of the ward.
Ward 8 covers Chisipite, Highlands, Newlands, Ballantyne Park and The Grange among other suburbs.
