The Environmental Management Agency (EMA) has partnered Mutare City council to establish a sustainable solution to tackle the challenge of solid waste management, after condemning the city’s dumpsite.
EMA condemned the local authority’s dumpsite in Darlington and penalized council for continuing to use it, while the council management grapples say they have to raise the US$1 million needed for a new solid waste landfill.
Mutare city recently reviewed its Local Environment Action Plan (LEAP) with EMA where the landfill project headlining the city’s Integrated Solid Waste Management plan, crafted in line with the National solid waste management plan.
Health services director Dr Anthony Mutara addressing delegates at the review workshop, said the authority was taking a multi-stakeholder consultation approach to come up with ways of implementing the plan at minimum cost.
He said an environmental impact assessment for the solid waste landfill site in Gimboki has already been carried out.
“For a city this big, we would need about US$1 million to come up with a standard solid waste landfill but such funds will not be easy to come by. This is why we are engaging partners who will come on board to assist with technical expertise to reduce the cost,” he said.
Dr Mutara said the five year plan was part of the City’s long term initiatives towards a smart city and achieving a middle income economy by 2030.
“The 2030 middle income economy requires us to put in place the building blocks to get there. We cannot be talking of middle income economy when we are still indiscriminately dumping waste. This plan speaks to that movement towards achieving the Government’s objectives,” said Dr Mutara.
Mutare is reviewing its LEAP- drafted last year to come up with sustainable solutions to other environmental challenges that will arise with the growth of the city.
EMA principal environmental officer Precious Magwaza said Mutare was one of the cities doing fairly well on solid waste management and now needed to step up efforts to make it more sustainable.
“As EMA we have developed a National integrated solid waste management action plan which is a holistic plan to say waste management is everyone’s business.
“We are now calling on local authorities to adopt it and develop their own local level plans that are alive to the national plan for sustainable waste management in the country,” she said.
She said the solid waste management plan and the LEAP would complement the national cleanup campaign on issues of waste separation at source, recycling and waste energy.
“We are running the ‘beyond the broom’ programme to say it shouldn’t just be about collection of waste, which is what Mutare city is already doing. We want to see what other sustainable solutions we can put in place,” Magwaza.
