adminHazardous Waste Generation
The main drivers for generation of hazardous wastes in Zimbabwe are the high rates of urbanisation and the increased economic activity in sectors that include agriculture, mining and manufacturing.
Thus, the main types of hazardous waste produced in Zimbabwe include:
- Agricultural waste — agro-chemicals such as pesticide residues and containers discarded mostly during the fumigation of commercial crops like coffee, tea, cotton, tobacco, flowers and vegetables notably on large estates.
- Hazardous effluent from tanneries, breweries, textile industries and manufacturers of soaps and detergents.
- Waste oil including oil filters from manufacturing industries and informal vehicle workshops and railways. This type of waste is often burned or illegally dumped;
- Pharmaceutical and medical waste, which include drugs and chemicals that have expired, contaminated and sub-standard or are no longer required, as well as hospital waste including pathological waste, needles, syringes, scalpels and glass;
- Wet and dry cell batteries containing heavy metals such as lead, zinc, mercury and cadmium;
- Paint residue and waste from industries that produce water-based domestic paint and decorative oil-based paints; and
- Biphenyls, from electrical transformers contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
Hazardous Waste Storage and Treatment
Only a few suitable facilities exist for safe storage of hazardous waste. These are owned by private companies who use the facilities for their own operations. Thus, generally hazardous waste is stored in the producers’ backyards, often in unsuitable containers. Storage is usually extended resulting in spillage of the wastes.
At most medical institutions, special medical waste, such as, soiled surgical dressings and pathological waste are stored separately in clinical waste bags and disposed of through incineration. Other hazardous wastes such as syringes, needles, blood lancets, stitch cutters and cartridges are placed in suitable “sharps”containers, which when full (or after a time not exceeding one week) are sealed and placed in clinical waste bags, for safe storage prior to removal and disposal through incineration. A colour coding system is used so that different types of medical wastes are not mixed.
Hazardous Waste Collection, Transportation and Disposal
Collection and transportation of hazardous waste is carried out by local authorities and a few private companies. But significant quantities of these wastes are transported and dumped illegally.
Most hazardous waste is directly disposed of in the environment using methods such as simple burying and crude open dumping. There are, thus inadequate facilities for the safe handling and sanitary disposal of hazardous waste in Zimbabwe, mainly due to lack of financial resources to construct proper landfills.
Responses to Hazardous Waste Management
The Environmental Management Act (Cap 20:27) Section 140 as read with Statutory Instrument 10 of 2007 (Hazardous Waste Management), is the legislation that regulates handling of hazardous waste, and are the legal instrument used to manage hazardous waste in the country. Under these regulations, no person shall generate, store, sell, transport, use, recycle, discharge or dispose of hazardous waste to the environment except under a licence from Environmental Management Agency (EMA).
Hazardous waste is divided into four categories denoting environmentally safe (blue), low hazard (green), medium hazard (yellow) and high environmental hazard (red). A licence is valid for one (1) year and is renewable. A hazardous waste generator pays a monitoring fee as well as an appropriate environmental fee for discharge/disposal of the waste into the environment. In addition, a red class licence holder also pays a penalty that is equivalent to 50 percent of the monitoring plus environmental fee.
Each year every generator of hazardous waste is required to prepare a waste management plan. This should include an inventory of the waste management situation by specifying the quantity of waste produced and components of such waste as well as specific goals for reducing the quantities and pollution discharges of the waste through adaptation of cleaner production methods, recycling of waste, safe transportation and disposal of waste and generally the adaptation of environmentally sound management of waste.
The regulations are quite comprehensive and operationalise the Environmental Management Act ( Cap 20:27) sections they cover, as well as specific procedures to be followed in complying with the provisions of the Act with regards to hazardous waste management. For the regulation to make an impact, they require not only enforcement by the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) and other law enforcement agencies, but the participation of all Zimbabweans in observing and enforcing them.
Quote of the week: Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our appetites. — William Ruckelshaus, Business Week, 18 June 1990.
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