MUTARE- Government has urged private companies to tackle waste management head on through embracing principles of extended producer responsibility.
Minister of state for Manicaland affairs, Ellen Gwaradzimba appealed to the private sector to embrace proper waste management strategies, to ameliorate the burden on struggling local authorities which manage over a million tons of waste daily in urban areas.
Gwaradzimba made these remarks on the sidelines of a national cleanup campaign held in Mutare recently, in partnership with civic organizations, Green Governance Trust, Women’s Collation Zimbabwe (WCoZ), private sector and religious sects.
“One of the challenges that the country has faced over the years is pollution through poor waste management. On average urban centres in Zimbabwe generate about 1.65 million tonnes of waste per day.
“The waste ends up as litter and on open illegal dumps on wetland, contaminating surface ground water thus posing a major health hazard,” she said.
On the industrial sector, whose output have a direct bearing on the pollution emitted into the environment Gwaradzimba said corporates have a role to play in ensuring their waste is properly disposed.
“To our industrial sector, let us remember that most waste results from our operations including packaging materials. In the highest sense, we are the precursors of waste generation and such.
“I call upon the business community to voluntarily embrace the extended producer responsibility as a strategy to promote sustainable waste management through recycling,” she said.
Green Governance Trust, executive director Frank Mpahlo, said while the EPR is feasible to ensure sustainable waste management, there should be standardized national policy and compliance mechanisms.
Mpahlo said for the sake of environmental responsibility corporates to join the growing international trend toward extension of EPR to new products, product groups and waste streams such as electrical appliances and electronics. He said corporates which must take an active role in ensuring sustainability in their operations.
Mpahlo said it was incumbent upon private sector players, operating on a social licence, to take up an active role as they are producers of products which are disposed in the environment as waste.
“The private sector has a key role in reducing waste since their production processes result in waste disposal and are also the primary producers of goods and products that lead to waste. The EPR concept is a sustainable approach that should be embraced by the business sector as a form of environmental responsibility that they are mandated to have.
“However, given the complacency of some companies in taking part in the environmental sustainability agenda, there needs to be seriousness in law enforcement and compliance to environmental laws, and probably create a policy that standardizes the EPR as national level
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a policy approach under which producers are given a significant responsibility – financial and/or physical – for the treatment or disposal of post-consumer products.
According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) assigning such responsibility could in principle provide incentives to prevent wastes at the source, promote product design for the environment and support achievement of public recycling and materials management goals.
