Waste recycling a low-hanging fruit: First Lady

Tendai Rupapa Senior Reporter

WASTE recycling is a low-hanging fruit benefiting scores of families, earning them a decent living and helping keep the environment clean.

In view of this, the country’s environmental patron First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa yesterday visited Blue Lagoon in Avondale West where she joined hands with women from around the community, Harare City Council and the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) to pick plastic containers, bottles, cans and papers.

She also participated in sorting and separating the litter.

The First Lady expressed zeal to work with the women and help them in their efforts to keep the environment clean.

“I will keep on coming here for our own discussions and finding ways to keep our environment clean. Instead of just sitting at home doing nothing, you just pass through here to leave whatever you would have discarded from the house. 

“I believe you are now able to separate bottles, cans, egg trays and plastics. This is a way of earning money madzimai. Some may think this is nauseating, but look how smart this is. To us women, nothing is difficult so we must be organised into groups to come here and work as this is well-paying.

“I want to come back here with the final products that will be made from these things we have picked. Instead of staying indoors, this is cheap money and will help keep the environment clean,” she said.

Cleaning the city, the First Lady said, was not for janitors alone, but everyone can take part.

“I implore all ladies countrywide to come together and ensure we sort out the waste to earn this clean money,” she said.

She asked the women to form a committee to pick waste for the sustenance of their families.

The litter was then taken to companies that are into waste recycling like Muruwe and Petrecozim where it was sold. 

This will help women earn large sums of money depending on the quantity they had delivered.

While at the companies, the First Lady and her entourage were taken around and shown how litter is processed until they get the final product.

At Muruwe (Pvt) Ltd, a waste management company, the First Lady met a 75-year-old widow from Rugare, Gogo Anna Zebro who had come to drop her load.

She has been in the recycling business for the past 21 years and this, she said, enabled her to send her children to school and meet the costs for domestic provisions following the death of her husband in 2006.

“My husband passed on in 2006 leaving behind nine children. All these nine children are now parents with their own children. I cannot be seen knocking on the doors of my daughters-in-law seeking assistance. I told them to let me work because I am still strong. The year they will see me seated, they will know that the game is over. I wake up to pick waste daily,” she said with an air of achievement.

“I started picking litter in 2000 together with my husband and have been earning a living through this for the past 21 years. I earn good money through this,” she said.

From Muruwe, the First Lady proceeded to Petrecozim, another waste management company.

In an interview after the tour, the First Lady said: “Today I have visited companies and dumpsites where women were picking up litter and I have seen the selection that they do. I am saying to women countrywide, there is a lot of work that brings money to alleviate our day to day challenges. The women I have seen have shown a lot of interest because they did not know that there is money in picking that stuff, bringing it to companies that process.

“It needs a lot of support because for the companies to sustain themselves, they need people who pick up the litter and bring it to them,” she said.

 

The mother of the nation said if possible, it was critical that a law be enacted to ensure companies work in harmony with associations formed in communities. 

“For example, a certain company that produces a certain product, engages communities and form associations. The company, working with the associations would follow their litter wherever it would have been put by consumers to ensure the environment remains clean and safe for everyone.

“This will also create employment and ensure companies do not exploit people who bring in litter and not treat them as though they are doing voluntary work. It is a win-win situation because the companies will benefit and communities will also benefit. This can only be achieved if there is a law that binds the two to work hand in hand,” she said.

Litter, she said, clogged drainages which led to blockages that resulted in the spread of diseases due to sewages and damage to infrastructure.

Acting Harare Mayor, Councillor Musarurwa Stewart Mutizwa, who was part of the entourage, said council rallied behind the work being done by the First Lady to keep the environment safe and clean.

“It is our wish that the sorting of litter begins in the home. Putting bottles, paper, cardboard boxes and sadza separately will make the removal of refuse easy. Like what the First Lady said, we are now getting into the rainy season and the waste will block our drainage system, resulting in flash floods which give us headaches. 

“This is not for Harare alone, but the whole country. A clean environment bodes well for communities. Our tar is made with oil and diesel and if this mixes with lots of water from clogged drainages, it gets ruined. We now have many potholes because of litter which is blocking drainages. It’s our emphasis that we should keep the environment clean,” the acting mayor said.

Also present was Environmental Management Agency (EMA) director-general, Mr Arron Chigona who praised the First Lady for her passion for the environment and move to tackle the challenges in waste management.

“We want to take this opportunity to thank our patron for the environment the First Lady of this country. We want to celebrate this day where we have been with our patron visiting part of the work that we are doing with communities in the effort of achieving our NDS 1 strategy as EMA to provide a healthy, safe, clean environment for the nation. 

“We were taking the First Lady into the value chain of our waste from waste picking, waste sorting, preparation, marketing, production of products out of it and even to the extent of getting exports out of this waste. 

“We want to thank her for guiding us this far. We were at Blue Lagoon where we started with the community there and went to Muruwe where there is also a private company that is processing waste which comes to them through our efforts as EMA and waste collectors which are dotted around the country,” he said. 

Mr Chigona said in supporting their patron in terms of making sure that the environment is safe for everyone, EMA advocated the need for a law on waste management.

“In the endeavour to make sure that we deal with this issue of waste we feel it’s the right time that the nation should come to a point where the extended producer responsibility should now be part of our law. 

“In support of our patron in terms of making sure that our environment is clean and safe for everyone we want to make sure that the need for a law is put into effect. 

“Where we make sure that all our producers follow their waste from wherever it will be put by consumers. So we are looking at a concerted effort where we think as the issue of deposit fee on container beverages is done,” he said.