Tertiaries on waste

TERTIARY institutions in Zimbabwe should come up with innovative ways to assist local authorities in waste management, an official has said.

Africa University vice chancellor Professor Munashe Furusa said this recently while addressing stakeholders during a clean-up campaign held at the Mutare Provincial Hospital (MPH).

The AU is one of the institutions in the province spearheading waste management programs and mobilising resources clean-up campaigns.

According to the Environmental Management Agency (EMA), urban centres in the country generate about 165 million tons of waste per year, which ends up in open dumpsites posing serious health hazard to citizens.

“Cleaning our environment and managing waste is not a choice but a shared responsibility and hence as institutions of higher learning we should adopt waste management systems which helps in the correct disposal of waste,” said Furusa.

He said that was in sync with the move by the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education to build innovation hubs in all tertiary institutions across the country to meet the developmental agenda.

“Universities and other tertiary institutions must be innovative and should carry out cutting edge researches that bring technological solutions to management of waste and protection of the environment,” he said, adding at least 10 institutions in the country had since started constructing innovation hubs.