Bulawayo City Council battles to collect refuse
TENDAI BHEBE IN BULAWAYO
The Bulawayo City Council (BCC) is battling to collect refuse due to a shortage of refuse trucks resulting in in illegal dump sites amid fears this could lead to an outbreak of diseases.
Speaking to Business Times this week, the BCC assistant director of Environmental Health division, Charles Malaba said the local authority requires about 15 refuse trucks to deliver on its mandate.
“We’re facing a shortage of refuse trucks. We also have a shortage of equipment to properly manage the waste once taken to the disposal site,” he said.
Malaba said the city needs about 25 compactor trucks and has 14. At any given time there are not more than ten which are running to service the city, Malaba said.
“So if those 25 trucks can be available, it is going to save us a lot,” he said.
As part of efforts to deal with the situation, BCC has embarked on a community refuse collection programme that has seen the local authority using vehicles owned by community members to collect refuse in residential areas for a fee.
Bulawayo residents have raised concern over the increase of dumpsites in residential areas, saying the development is a health time bomb.
Thembelani Dube Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association (BPRA) secretary said the association was gravely concerned by the deteriorating standards of the cleanliness of the city.
The failure by the BCC to collect refuse in the CBD and in both the western and eastern parts of the city has given birth to undesignated dumping sites which are a health hazard and a ticking time bomb before the city is hit by another possible cholera outbreak,” Dube said.
He also expressed concern over the failure by BCC to attend to sewer bursts.
However, some Bulawayo councillors have blamed residents over an increase in illegal dumpsites saying there was lack of cooperation on the collection of refuse in residential suburbs.
The city has recorded a series of sewer pipe bursts, which have seen raw effluent flowing into homes.
