Zimbabweans drowning in their own rubbish
I know the city council has not been able to remove rubbish from some parts of Harare but that does not we citizens should enjoy it. There is this rubbish pile by Kuwadzana and instead of the people burning it or even sitting as far from it as possible, some vendors sit near it and enjoy it. Life carries on like there is no serious harm to their health and that of their customers. I was amazed that people can actually sit that close to a rubbish pile and laugh and enjoy themselves. There is also a lady who was picking up some plastic papers, taking her time while she was bending towards the rubbish. She did not seem to be bothered by the foul smell coming from there. I do not even want to imagine what she wanted to with the plastic papers, I just hope she wanted to light a fire or something along those lines.
I really think Zimbabweans have become content with things going wrong. People seem not to care enough to at least do something about it no matter how small. I know the rubbish pile might not be going anywhere soon but people can at least burn it.
If they can’t burn at least stay away from it.
Tuesday, February 15th 2011 at 6:35 pm
The problem lies in apathy. The Zimbawean people are so beaten down, so apathetic to their situation that they see the crumbling infrastructure around them and in comparison to what is happening to their own lives it seems so very small. They also look to someone else to provide the answer , as they looked to Britain and the West to solve the problem of their foul dictatorship, never realizing that the answer lies with themselves and if they can’t even clean up the rubbish in their own streets , how will they ever clean the rubbish from the corridors of power.
Tuesday, February 15th 2011 at 10:08 pm
The City Council has failed to perform it duty to provide services to the rate payer. We as a community do have a role to play in service delivery, we should play our part in assisting the authorities in providing services.
Uncollected garbage, burst sewer pipes, pools of raw sewage (you name it all) are unsightly and poss a serious healthy hazard.
I strongly disagree with the suggestion that we should burn the garbage, burning the garbage and litter will cause more environmental damage. Truth be told most of the stuff that we throw away can be:
1. recycled and re-used – think of plastic bags, bottles, paper … that we throw in the bin and drop on the streets
2. turned into compost and used as manure in your back yard garden
moving forward I challenge each and everyone to start sorting their garbage into:
1. rubbish – non composting (which should be recycled or properly disposed)
2. compost- use this in your garden or sell
The rubbish can then be sorted again into recyclable and non recyclable and where ever possible lets recycle and re-use the recyclables.
Food for thought (or thought for food -which ever comes first) before plastic bags were “banned” and been sold, how many plastic bags did you use to grab on your shopping trip (even for a single item) and what did you do with the bags afterward????.
where are those plastic bags right now? how long will they take to disintegrate in our rivers, wetlands, compost heaps, streets…..?
The local authorities should also play their role in service delivery, they also face a big challenge their dump sites are quickly filling up and once they resume normal service delivery they might not have anywhere to dump the rubbish.
We should start to look and explore sustainable and environmentalyy friendly ways on disposing our garbage.
Take for instance, when the dump site just after the national sports stadium caught fire, it took the authorities time to put out the fire which was polluting the environment and posed a threat to human life for people living in Warren park, Eastlea and the surrounding areas.
If we should look east, let us look east and learn how they are taking care of their garbage. I am sure there is a thing or two that we can learn from our brothers and sisters in the east.
This issue goes beyond uncollected garbage, our street poles, durawalls, buildings are an eye sore as a result of promotional material that is posted they (some of it dates back as long as the 2008 violent election, including thank you messages for voting for him in peace)
Our water sources are polluted with raw sewage and sledge from the work works, our wet lands are drying up and been used for “urban farming”, raw sewage flows in our streets, street lights are non exists. As rate payers and custodians for the environment for future generations its time that we demand some decent service delivery from the local authorities in return for our hard earned money.
my 2 cents
Tuesday, February 22nd 2011 at 1:45 pm
The ground has never been so fertile for Zimbabweans to revolt.The air has never been so tense. This year is the real year of swift ‘people takeover’. Zimbabwean are not stupid, if they were so docile, how did they take up arms against Smith? Aluta Continua