Gweru fights to boost waste management

GWERU City Council, which is battling with refuse collection due to an ageing fleet of refuse trucks, has urged residents to reuse, reduce and recycle their waste.

In a recent interview, Gweru mayor Councillor Charles Chikozho said they had launched community-based awareness programmes in all wards in a bid to rope in residents in the management of refuse using the 3R concept (reduce, reuse and recycle).

“We have launched ward-based community awareness programmes where we are encouraging residents to try and minimise the rate of waste through the 3R concept since we don’t have enough refuse collection trucks at the moment,” he said.

“The programmes would be rolled out in all areas in Gweru and people would be advised to reuse or recycle some of their waste.”

Clr Chikozho said the local authority had two refuse collection trucks servicing the whole city, a situation that was compromising service delivery.

“We only have two trucks on the road that are servicing the whole of Gweru and they operate double shifts so that they can collect refuse in all areas of the city, but we have been failing to meet the demand and, therefore, the 3R concept to manage waste,” he said.

“The other trucks are down and the spare parts are not available. We are not going to sit around and watch the waste management system failing because of missed refuse collection days.”

Clr Chikozho said they were looking at engaging private contractors to collect refuse in every suburb.

He said those with trucks above five tonnes could apply to council so that they collected refuse in their respective suburbs and deposit it at the council dumpsite.