Herald Reporter
RUWA is seeking to change the way communities manage waste, with a new separation-at-source programme placing households at the centre of efforts to reduce pollution, strengthen recycling and turn discarded materials into economic resources.
The initiative, which initially targets Silverbrook and Windsor Park, represents an important shift from the traditional approach of collecting mixed refuse and transporting it to disposal sites towards a system in which waste is sorted where it is generated, allowing reusable materials to be recovered before they become an environmental burden.
For a country grappling with illegal dumpsites, pressure on municipal services and the environmental consequences of indiscriminate waste disposal, the programme offers an opportunity to demonstrate how local authorities, residents and the private sector can work together to build cleaner, healthier and more sustainable communities.
At the centre of the initiative is a simple but potentially far-reaching principle: waste should not automatically be regarded as something to be discarded, but as a resource that can be recovered, reused and recycled.
Ruwa Local Board recently engaged Rutanhi, a recycling company operating in the town, residents of Silverbrook and council technical officials to discuss the implementation of the programme.
The engagement was attended by Ruwa Mayor Councillor Michael Mataruka, who said the initiative was part of efforts to transform residents’ attitudes towards waste management and encourage greater participation in environmental protection.
“Waste management is no longer simply about collecting refuse and taking it to a disposal site. We have to change the way we manage waste from the point where it is generated, and that means involving every household,” he said.
“By separating waste at source, we can recover valuable recyclable materials, reduce the amount of waste that requires disposal and create a cleaner and healthier environment for our residents.”
The programme requires participating households to separate recyclable materials from general waste before collection, making it easier for recycling companies to recover useful materials and channel them into productive use.
Plastics, paper, cardboard, metals and glass can be collected separately, subject to the materials accepted by the recycling partner and the arrangements established for collection.
Organic waste may also be managed separately where appropriate facilities and systems are available.
The approach is intended to reduce the volume of mixed waste requiring disposal while improving the quality of recyclable materials entering the recovery chain.
For the programme to succeed, however, residents will need clear guidance on sorting requirements, suitable storage methods, collection schedules and the handling of materials that cannot be recycled.
Mayor Mataruka said the initial rollout in Silverbrook and Windsor Park would provide an opportunity to educate residents, assess implementation challenges and strengthen the programme before it is extended to other communities.
“We are starting with Silverbrook and Windsor Park so that we can educate residents, learn from the implementation process and strengthen the programme before expanding it to other areas of Ruwa,” he said.
“We want residents to understand what should be separated, how it should be stored and how the recyclable materials will enter the recycling chain. This is not a programme for council alone; it is a partnership with the community.”
The emphasis on community participation is significant because waste separation begins long before refuse reaches a collection vehicle or disposal facility.
A household that keeps recyclable materials separate from food-contaminated waste makes recovery easier, while a business that sorts packaging materials can reduce the volume of refuse requiring collection.
Similarly, residents who dispose of rubbish irresponsibly can undermine the work of local authorities, environmental regulators and recycling companies.
The success of the Ruwa initiative will therefore depend not only on the availability of recycling services but also on whether households consistently adopt the new practices.
A national environmental challenge
Ruwa’s initiative comes against the background of persistent solid waste management challenges in Zimbabwe’s urban settlements, where population growth, changing consumption patterns and inadequate waste recovery have placed pressure on municipal systems.
The consequences extend beyond unsightly streets and overflowing refuse containers.
Poorly managed waste can block drainage systems, contribute to localised flooding, create conditions favourable to disease-carrying pests and contaminate land and water. Burning mixed waste can also release harmful pollutants, while plastics discarded into the environment can persist for long periods.
The challenge is particularly acute where refuse collection is irregular and residents have limited access to convenient disposal facilities.
Ruwa Local Board and the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) have previously worked together to address illegal dumping in the town.
In February 2024, the local authority reported that 19 dumps had been cleared following the declaration of a State of Disaster on emergency solid waste management in Harare Metropolitan Province under Statutory Instrument 140 of 2023.
Council and EMA also conducted public awareness programmes to encourage responsible waste disposal.
Ruwa Local Board’s Environment and Health Officer, Mr Benam Nyawo, warned residents against illegal dumping, emphasising that it violated council by-laws.
“We implore our residents to dispose of their solid waste correctly. Council has by-laws that prohibit littering and illegal dumping of waste, these offences attract heavy penalties,” he said.
The experience demonstrates why clean-up campaigns, although necessary, must be accompanied by sustained waste collection, public education and systems that prevent rubbish from accumulating again.
Removing waste from an illegal dumpsite addresses an immediate environmental problem. Establishing reliable collection arrangements and recovering recyclable materials can help reduce the likelihood of the same site becoming a dumping ground once more.
Ruwa’s separation-at-source programme could therefore complement existing enforcement and clean-up measures by addressing waste at the point of generation.
From refuse to economic opportunity
Beyond improving environmental cleanliness, the initiative has the potential to strengthen the recycling value chain and create opportunities for businesses and communities.
Recyclable materials have economic value when they are properly sorted, collected and supplied to industries capable of processing them into new products.
Paper and cardboard can be recovered for recycling, while suitable plastics and metals can be channelled to processing facilities. Glass can also be recovered where collection and processing arrangements exist.
Recovering these materials can reduce the demand for virgin raw materials and help industries make productive use of resources that would otherwise be discarded.
For recycling enterprises, the availability of reasonably clean and consistently sorted materials can improve handling and processing efficiency.
For households and businesses, the programme can encourage more responsible consumption and disposal practices. For the wider community, it can support employment across collection, transportation, sorting and processing.
However, the economic benefits are not automatic.
The value of recovered materials depends on market demand, transport costs, processing capacity and the prices offered by buyers. A sustainable programme must therefore connect household separation to dependable collection services and viable recycling markets.
Rutanhi’s involvement offers an opportunity to strengthen that connection in Ruwa.
The company already has a recycling presence in the town, including a buy-back centre through which post-consumer materials can be collected, sorted and prepared for recycling. It has also participated in recycling partnerships involving used Tetra Pak cartons.
Linking such infrastructure with household-level sorting could help create a more organised flow of recyclable materials from homes to recovery facilities.
The next step will be to establish how the collection system will operate in practice, which materials will be accepted, how often they will be collected and how residents will receive feedback on the results.
For a programme intended to expand beyond its initial communities, transparent performance monitoring will also be important.
The quantities of recyclables collected, the proportion rejected because of contamination, the number of participating households and the volume of waste diverted from disposal sites would provide useful measures of progress.
Without such information, it would be difficult to determine whether the programme is delivering environmental benefits or identify where improvements are required.
The law and the responsibility to act
Zimbabwe’s environmental legislation provides a framework for responsible waste management.
Section 70 of the Environmental Management Act [Chapter 20:27] prohibits waste disposal in ways that cause environmental pollution or ill health. It also requires waste generators to take measures to minimise waste through treatment, reclamation and recycling.
The legislation reinforces the principle that responsibility for waste management does not rest solely with local authorities.
Households, businesses, industries, waste collectors and recycling companies all have roles to play in preventing pollution and ensuring that waste is handled appropriately.
EMA’s regulatory and environmental awareness functions are therefore important in supporting initiatives such as Ruwa’s, particularly through compliance monitoring, public education and the promotion of responsible disposal practices.
Yet enforcement alone cannot resolve the problem if residents lack accessible collection services or do not understand how to separate their waste.
Effective waste management requires both individual responsibility and reliable public services.
Residents must dispose of rubbish correctly, while local authorities must provide clear collection arrangements and ensure that separated materials are handled in accordance with the programme.
Recycling partners must also have the capacity to collect and process the materials they accept.
The separation-at-source model can deliver results only when these responsibilities are coordinated.
The missing link: people who recover waste
Any serious discussion of recycling in Zimbabwe must also recognise the contribution of people who earn a living by collecting and recovering discarded materials.
Informal waste pickers have long played a role in extracting recyclable materials from urban waste streams, including at disposal sites. Their activities can support resource recovery, but the working conditions associated with informal waste picking can expose them to physical hazards, contaminated materials and insecure livelihoods.
A 2017 study by Svongwa Nemadire, Stenly Mapurazi and George Nyamadzawo, published in Natural Resources Forum, examined the integration of informal recycling into Harare’s solid waste management system, using Pomona as a case study.
The researchers concluded that the city had not fully integrated the informal recycling sector into its waste management system and argued that addressing this gap could help improve the overall approach to urban waste management.
The findings remain relevant to discussions about formal recycling programmes because they highlight the importance of recognising the people who already recover valuable materials from the waste stream.
As Ruwa develops its initiative, opportunities to work with organised recycling groups and other existing material-recovery enterprises could help broaden participation and support livelihoods.
Such collaboration would need appropriate arrangements for occupational safety, fair access to recyclable materials and compliance with environmental requirements.
The objective should be to create a system in which environmental protection and economic inclusion reinforce each other rather than operate separately.
Learning from Harare’s waste management experience
The transformation of waste management in Ruwa cannot be considered in isolation from developments in neighbouring Harare, where the scale of the challenge has prompted greater involvement by private-sector operators.
Geo Pomona Waste Management’s work at Pomona and its involvement in clearing illegal dumpsites provide a prominent example of efforts to improve waste collection and organise disposal operations.
In March 2025, Geo Pomona had collected 34 417 tonnes of waste between February 10 and 28, following 3 876 trips across the capital.
The reported daily collection volumes ranged from 1 500 to 2 000 tonnes, illustrating the scale of the clean-up operation.
The exercise targeted accumulated rubbish in residential areas, including Kuwadzana, Crowborough and Warren Park.
The figures demonstrate the potential impact of mobilising collection capacity to remove large volumes of accumulated waste. They also underline the scale of the work required to keep a growing city clean.
Residents welcomed the clean-up while stressing the importance of maintaining regular refuse collection.
Warren Park resident Mr Lincoln Dumba described the former dumpsites as breeding grounds for disease and expressed hope that the improvements would be sustained.
In Kuwadzana, Mrs Rudo Chikwada welcomed the removal of rubbish piles near places where children had been playing.
Another resident, Mr Simbarashe Ndukwa, said regular collection would be necessary to prevent cleared areas from reverting to illegal dumpsites.
Their concerns point to a fundamental distinction between a successful clean-up and a sustainable waste management system.
A clean-up can remove accumulated rubbish, but lasting results require regular collection, responsible disposal, public participation and effective enforcement.
Geo Pomona’s experience also highlights the importance of infrastructure at the point where collected waste is delivered.
The company has reported improvements at the Pomona site, including organised waste-handling areas, access roads, security measures and the encapsulation of older waste deposits. Its wider project has included the development of sorting facilities, hazardous waste disposal infrastructure and a proposed waste-to-energy plant.
The planned plant has been designed to process up to 1 000 tonnes of municipal waste a day and generate between 16 and 22 megawatts of electricity once operational.
These figures describe the project’s intended capacity, not electricity generation already achieved.
The distinction matters because modern waste management depends on measurable results, not simply the announcement of new infrastructure.
The broader lesson for Ruwa is that collection, sorting, recycling and final disposal must function as connected parts of one system.
If recyclable materials are separated at household level but subsequently mixed during collection, the value of separation is undermined. If recyclable waste is recovered but there is no dependable market for it, accumulation can become another problem. If general waste is collected without adequate disposal infrastructure, the environmental burden remains.
An integrated system must address each of these stages.
Geo Pomona: a former dumpsite begins a new chapter
One of the most visible examples of the changing approach to waste management in Zimbabwe is the redevelopment of the Pomona dumpsite in Harare.
For years, Pomona symbolised the difficulties facing urban waste management, with accumulated rubbish and environmental concerns highlighting the consequences of relying heavily on open dumping.
Geo Pomona Waste Management took over operations under a joint venture concession with the City of Harare in April 2022, with the stated objective of developing a more organised waste management facility.
The company has since reported that the site has been reorganised through the creation of designated waste disposal areas, access roads, security infrastructure and a weighbridge for recording incoming waste.
It has also reported the encapsulation of historic waste deposits using engineered covering materials and soil, a process intended to improve site stability and reduce the release of gases from older waste.
The company has further outlined plans for a dedicated hazardous waste landfill, wastewater treatment infrastructure, sorting operations and a waste-to-energy facility.
These developments represent a shift away from an uncontrolled dumping model towards a more structured approach to handling waste.
The site’s transformation is also significant because it demonstrates how an existing environmental liability can become the starting point for investment in new infrastructure and resource recovery.
Geo Pomona’s waste-to-energy proposal is intended to address part of the disposal challenge by converting suitable combustible municipal waste into electricity, while recyclable materials would be separated for recovery.
The planned capacity of up to 1 000 tonnes of waste a day and electricity generation of between 16 and 22 megawatts could, if achieved under appropriate environmental controls, combine waste reduction with energy production.
However, the long-term success of the project will depend on the commissioning and reliable operation of its facilities, effective pollution controls, compliance with environmental standards and transparent reporting of performance.
Waste-to-energy should also complement, rather than replace, waste prevention, reuse and recycling. Materials that can be recovered should not be unnecessarily discarded, while residual waste must be managed safely.
The significance of Geo Pomona therefore extends beyond the physical rehabilitation of the site. Its wider model illustrates the potential for public-private partnerships to mobilise investment, equipment and operational capacity in response to a major urban service-delivery challenge.
It also offers a reminder that infrastructure alone cannot eliminate illegal dumping if waste collection is unreliable or residents lack suitable disposal options.
The lasting test will be whether the system can sustain cleaner neighbourhoods, reduce the environmental burden of disposal and recover resources efficiently over time.
A model for a cleaner Zimbabwe
For Ruwa, the opportunity is to combine the lessons of large-scale waste collection with a stronger emphasis on preventing waste from entering the disposal stream in the first place.
Where Geo Pomona’s operations demonstrate the importance of organised collection and disposal infrastructure, Ruwa’s separation-at-source programme places greater emphasis on household behaviour and the recovery of materials before they become mixed refuse.
The two approaches address different but complementary stages of the waste management chain.
A successful programme in Silverbrook and Windsor Park could provide practical lessons for other communities in Ruwa and potentially other urban areas, particularly if it demonstrates consistent collection, reliable recycling partnerships and measurable reductions in waste sent for disposal.
For that to happen, the pilot will need clear objectives, regular public communication and a system for measuring results.
Residents should know which materials to separate, when collections will take place and what happens to the waste after it leaves their homes. Council should monitor participation, collection reliability and the quantities of materials recovered. Recycling partners should communicate any changes to the materials they can accept.
The programme should also recognise that some households may need assistance with storage containers, collection information or access to suitable disposal points.
Such practical considerations can determine whether residents adopt separation as a lasting habit or abandon it when the process becomes inconvenient.
Mayor Mataruka said residents had an important role to play in the initiative, urging them to make waste separation part of their daily routines.
“We want to build a culture where residents understand that the waste generated in their homes has value. Plastics, paper, cardboard, metals, glass and other recyclable materials can be recovered instead of being mixed with general waste and sent for disposal,” he said.
“This will help us reduce pressure on our disposal systems while supporting recycling and the creation of economic opportunities along the waste value chain.”
The mayor’s call captures the central challenge facing local authorities: a cleaner town cannot be achieved through refuse collection alone.
It requires a combination of infrastructure, environmental regulation, recycling markets, public education and a shared commitment to responsible waste management.
Ruwa Local Board’s vision of developing a town of excellence by 2030 provides a wider development framework for the initiative, linking environmental cleanliness with sustainable urban development and improved service delivery.
But the real measure of success will be visible in the everyday lives of residents: fewer illegal dumpsites, cleaner public spaces, more reliable collection, safer neighbourhoods and recyclable materials finding their way back into productive use.
If the programme delivers those outcomes, Silverbrook and Windsor Park could become examples of how communities can help reshape the future of waste management.
And if the lessons are replicated elsewhere, the benefits could extend well beyond Ruwa.
From household sorting bins to organised recycling centres and modern disposal facilities, Zimbabwe’s waste management challenge demands a coordinated response that recognises rubbish not simply as a municipal burden, but as an environmental responsibility and a potential economic resource.
The ultimate goal is not merely to move waste from one place to another. It is to prevent unnecessary waste, recover what can be used again and ensure that what remains is managed safely.
For Ruwa, that transformation begins at the household door.
