FAITH MADZINGA
Government’s clean-up campaign has created a sense of responsibility in the mindset of citizens and is drawing Zimbabwe to where it is supposed to be but one clean up day per month may be insufficient due to poor waste management, experts have said.
The clean-up exercise is done on the first Friday of every month.
Lenin Chisaira environmental Director at Advocates 4Earth said one day a month is insufficient especially for towns and cities with “poor waste management systems”.
He said the uptake has mainly been by parastatals rather than ordinary citizens which calls for efforts to scale up mobilisation of citizens.
“I think there is need for involvement of local authorities and civil society in the clean Up Fridays,” Chisaira said.
EMA Environment education and publicity manager Amkela Sidange said the programme has been embraced by the corporate sector, religious grouping and schools.
“…All schools are cleaning up and that is a real deal because remember when we are dealing with school kids we are talking of the future leaders and we are catching them young. When we catch them young like that when they get to the community they will pass on the message to the community,” Sidange said.
She said different sectors are adopting cleaning spaces and corporates are placing bins in several open spaces.
Sidange said there are good steps and “if we keep on moving in that direction I foresee a situation where by the population would have fully embraced the national cleanup campaign”.
“The campaign have no challenges because it is a campaign coming with a declaration from the president and actually gives the whole programme position that citizens are aware of the presidential declaration. Challenges are coming from citizens where by they don’t want to change their behaviour,” she said.
Environmentalist Kundai Ngwenya said the cleanup exercise has shifted people from a corporate phase to a social corporate responsibility programme “so we are actual doing the right thing on an individual note”.
“Remember these corporates have employed people from communities its actually a way of trying to help communities. The campaign has seemed to reach Zimbabwean waste management goal,” Ngwenya said.