From waste to cash — Matabeleland South celebrates champions
FOR Ms Angeline Ndlovu of Phakama Waste Recyclers, rubbish on the streets of Gwanda Town is gold to her as she has managed to send her children to university, boarding school and can put food on the table for her family courtesy of a waste management programme initiated by the Office of the First Lady, Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa.
She initially suffered discouragement from friends, family, and strangers but Ms Ndlovu remained steadfast with her hustle and managed to convert the community around her on the value of picking waste and recycling it for money.
On Saturday Ms Ndlovu shared a moving testimony of how her life had changed for the best since she started picking waste in 2012 at a Waste Recycling as a Business graduation ceremony in Gwanda yesterday where 424 recycling champions from Matabeleland South Province were honoured for their hard work after receiving training from the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) and other line ministries.
First Lady Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa
“Asidobhe kanye kanye sijabule sonke, izibi lezi ngumnotho, yimali, yintuthuko, asidobhe kanye kanye sijabule sonke (let us pick waste together and be happy, this waste is wealth, it is money, it is development),” sang Ms Ndlovu as she stood to give a testimony.
“Many people from Gwanda know me, I live off picking litter, to me it is now money, when I meet someone drinking from a plastic container, I cannot wait for them to finish it and I pick it up for recycling. I started recycling in 2012 and I was picking old car batteries. After a while, I moved to picking cans that I sell at the market. My first child is completing a Master’s Degree, the second born is going to the Zimbabwe School of Mines, I am a mother to a lawyer and a geologist, and all these fees I pay using proceeds from recycling. I left my job to go and be a waste picker and people looked down upon me. They had not realised the benefits,” she said.
In a speech read on her behalf by the Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution for Matabeleland South Province, Cde Abednico Ncube, First Lady Dr Mnangagwa who is the Environment Patron congratulated the graduates saying waste management had deteriorated in the past two decades in most urban centres, growth points, towns, and cities.
Environmental Management Agency (EMA)
“Local authorities seem to be running out of ideas and resources to manage this waste, exposing us to disease-causing organisms as well as being an eyesore. Using the principles of clarity, 20 percent of a typical household bin’s contents should be taken to a landfill. However, due to the low uptake of waste separation, recycling, recovery, and re-use, around 85 percent of our annual household waste ends up at landfill sites instead of being recycled,” she said.
The First Lady said people were now buying new resources at higher prices as communities continue to exploit the earth for more and less accessible resources.
She said the linear model of doing business must be done away with and communities adopt a circular model.
Cde Abednico Ncube
“Crippling this new model of doing business is the challenge of mixing different waste materials both at source and at our landfills. This practice then leads to the pollution of the environment with the production of harmful gases like methane being produced. Accumulation of such gases also results in spontaneous combustion hence regular fires in our dumpsite, which again are an environmental nuisance. We see that regularly at Gwanda dumpsite which is forever on fire and a daily nuisance,” said the First Lady.
She applauded the Municipality of Gwanda for constructing a landfill which is yet to be commissioned.
Dr Mnangagwa said taking the recycling route does not only reduce the volume of material sent to landfills but also reduces the cost of water management and the amount of energy used to manufacture new products from raw materials.
“In realisation of the situation prevailing across the country, the Government of Zimbabwe prioritised waste recycling as a flagship output in the economic blueprint the National Development Strategy 1. To convert this into action my office worked with the Ministry of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry and EMA to roll out a training programme to capacitate grassroots communities on the best practices in the management of waste including reuse, recovery, and recycling as a business,” she added.
The First Lady commended the graduates to continue with the initiatives imparted to them as they were now the beacon of the communities.
President Mnangagwa
She also encouraged them to register with their local authorities and EMA in order to get recognised as this would bring accountability and traceability necessary for monitoring the continuity of their efforts and to further access to necessary technical backup and funding institutions.
“Furthermore, for your efforts to be successful as recyclers, you need to rally behind the National Clean-up Campaign which was declared in 2018 by the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, His Excellency Cde Dr ED Mnangagwa. By so doing you will be perpetuating the ultimate thrust of the programme of going beyond the broom,” she added.
Dr Mnangagwa encouraged the graduates and the people who had gathered for the event to uphold the principles of reducing, recycling and reusing waste. — chronicle
