Byo concerned over greenhouse emissions

BULAWAYO City Council is currently struggling to deal with escalating greenhouse emissions from landfills due to the city’s poor waste disposal methods.

The council says the greenhouses were emitting about 5,8 million kilogrammes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to (C02- eq) per month.

These concerns were highlighted in the latest council minutes in which the city fathers called for stricter measures to be adopted to curb the toxic emissions.

This comes at a time when the United Nations Framework on Climate Change Convention and the Zimbabwe National Climate Change policy has identified poor waste management strategies as the major drivers of greenhouse gas emissions.

“Greenhouse gases contributed to global warming which then brought out climate change. There is therefore a need to monitor greenhouse gas emissions from the waste management activities and to come up with measures to mitigate this,” the minutes read.

“The total estimated greenhouse gas emissions from solid waste activities for the month of September 2020 were 5 825 306, 71kg of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2- eq),” they said.

Council estimated greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from waste collection at 38892,70kg of CO2eq per month, from land filling at 5405589,63kg of CO2- eq per month, from open burning at 380 824,38 kg of CO2-eq per month, and the total emissions were estimated at 5 825 306,71 kg of CO2-eq per month.

Councillor Felix Mhaka expressed concern over failure by council to regularly remove refuse from residential areas.

“Councillor Joyce Ndlovu said ward two had a lot of illegal dumps. The bushy area at the boundary of ward one and two was the worst affected area. There was need to enforce illegal dumping by-laws and other relevant by-laws.”

Alderman Monica Lubimbi noted that refuse was not being collected in some areas of ward 29, adding that there was an increase in illegal dumping.