About 15 months after the country ’s city councils acknowledged the problem of refuse collection, the local authorities continue struggling in managing waste due to various reasons, including a shortage of refuse equipment.
Spot-checks in some selected areas in Blantyre, Lilongwe, Zomba, and Mzuzu found that some residents have turned their respective areas into dumping sites due to a lack of skip bins.
In some areas, the skip bins have gone about two weeks without being emptied or replaced.
For instance, a visit to Blantyre Market’s Irish potato section and Bangwe Market, both in Blantyre, found skip bins completely filled with waste.
This compelled some market users and surrounding communities to dump waste around the skip bins.
At Tsoka Market in Lilongwe, vendors have turned the Lilongwe River bank into a dumping site, while at Zigwagwa Market in Mzuzu, most parts of the facility have uncollected garbage.
In an interview, Mzuzu City Council spokesperson McDonald Gondwe said the city, which has a population of about 400 000 people, only has one functional refuse collection vehicle and three others are not functioning.
He said: “This is really affecting our service delivery in terms of waste management. But we hope to improve our services when the other vehicles hit the ground.”
In a separate interview, Blantyre City Council spokesperson Deborah Luka acknowledged that the council faces numerous challenges relating to waste management, despite having nine functional refuse collection trucks.
She said vandalism of street bins is among the challenges affecting waste management in the city.
“On top of that, we don’t have the capacity for waste separation. Wastes are supposed to be separated, for example, plastics on one side or food on the other side, but as we are talking now, we don’t have that capacity.
“Besides that, high operation costs and illegal dumping by some residents, which is beyond our control, are also among the biggest challenges.”
Like Mzuzu, Lilongwe City Council (LCC) also has one functional refuse collection vehicle against a population of about 1 million people.
LCC spokesperson Tamara Chafunya told Zodiak Broadcasting Station that the situation has affected refuse collection in the capital city.
Commenting on the matter, Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences associate professor of environmental health Save Kumwenda said waste management needs to be taken seriously.
He noted that most of the diseases such as malaria that city residents struggle with emanate from waste.
“So it is very important if we want to reduce diseases in our cities, we should collect waste timely and make sure we dispose of them properly,” said Kumwenda.
UN statistics further show that 988 tonnes of garbage are produced on a daily basis in Blantyre and Lilongwe, where only 28 percent or 276.6 tonnes are properly disposed of.
The report says Blantyre produces 435 tonnes while Lilongwe produces 553 tonnes of waste.
This is equivalent to 435 000 and 553 000 garbage bags weighing 10 kilogrammes (kg) each. This means 360 620 tonnes of garbage are produced annually.
