Online Reporter
Victor Maphosa
Mashonaland East Bureau
The Dairy Processors Association of Zimbabwe (DPAZ) will soon embark on a massive waste processing project across the country to create employment and make usable products from waste.
The association’s secretary general Mrs Tendai Marecha said the organisation has a pact with a South African company Tetra Pack for the latter to build a waste processing plant in Zimbabwe.
Mrs Marecha said one of the conditions for the establishment of the plant is for the association to collect 1 000 tonnes of waste every month.
In preparation for this, the association and representatives from Tetra Pack held an awareness campaign in Marondera on Tuesday to educate the public on the importance of collecting waste from dairy products which include cardboard box containers.
The association is currently importing these cardboard box containers as well as packaging for other dairy products from Tetra Pack and the setting up of a waste processing plant locally will be a step in the right direction for the organisation.
“We are a nine-member organisation of processors who are into value addition of milk and milk products,” she said.
“As an association we buy most of our packaging from Tetra Pack which is a South African based organisation. We get packaging for UTH milk like Chimombe, Maheweu, Citro as well as Revive.
“So as an organisation we signed a pact with Tetra Pack where we are supposed to collect about 1000 tomes of waste per month and in turn Tetra Pack will install a waste recycling and processing plant for us locally so that we can make several products.
“We are doing this awareness campaign so that we can increase the volumes of our pickings to at least a thousand tonnes per month so that we can get our factory locally.”
She added that waste collection points will be set up as soon as possible and those who will collect waste will be paid per kilogram.
She said the programme has a potential value chain and will create employment for many people.
Online Reporter