This leaves us with one conclusion; there are people out there who are either bent on (for reasons best known to themselves) sabotaging clean-up efforts, or are completely ignorant of the adverse effects of a dirty environment on each inhabitant.
Last year, we reported quite a lot on companies and individuals who, especially in Harare, realising that somebody had to do it, organised clean-up campaigns and constantly invaded the litter hot-spots to clean-up, in full view of everyone present.
Besides pointing attention to the dirty state the city was in, the efforts were also meant to show the general public there was absolutely nothing denigrating about cleaning up one’s surroundings. Following the challenge, even the council upped its game with their cleaners taking their job seriously.
With almost one year gone and the clean-up efforts still on, one would have expected the country, and especially Harare, to be in a squeaky clean state with the littering problem pretty much a thing of the past.
But this is not to be. Instead, people keep tossing rubbish anywhere and everywhere and wherever you look trash stares back at you. It’s like people wouldn’t be bothered even by the fact that littering is, as it has been for a while, a finable offence.
Not that the police is taking any noticeable action to make the public aware of this fact. Just the other time, one policeman who sat opposite us (pakadoma) in a kombi threw out of the window, in a carefree manner like it was the most natural thing to do, an empty plastic bottle of the drink he had finished consuming.
Such behaviour is very unfortunate, especially now when cleaning up is more imperative than ever, considering the typhoid outbreak that has of late been causing havoc, mostly in the high-density suburbs where the littering culture is evidently acceptable enough to be taken as “just one of those things”.
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“It is not all of us that are litter bugs, some of us are careful about where we dispose of our litter and would love more than anything a clean healthy environment,” asserted Sithandiwe Madonka when I had suggested that everyone in Zimbabwe was a litter bug, an accusation she thought was ridiculous.
And of course she was right, not all of us are litter bugs, but we have nevertheless been subjected to living in a dirty and unhealthy environment.
Illegal dumping not the solution to uncollected refuse
Street vendors are mostly to blame for littering the CBD as they are scattered all over. But the vendors deny any wrong doing, insisting that their job is to sell their wares and not to follow after people to check where they disposed of the litter.
Street people, that now comprise more than just homeless children as it has become common nowadays to see an entire family living on the streets, have also been identified as some of the worst litter bugs considering that everything they own has to find “home” on the streets.
Pedestrians cannot be spared the blame as people have been observed to walk around throwing all kinds of litter to the ground, especially food packaging.
And just to prove the littering problem is universal, motorists have been observed to be among the worst litter bugs as they have a tendency to throw litter out of their moving vehicles.
Also among those observed to be mostly responsible for our litter woes are people at entertainment centres where food and beverages are consumed. Refuse from work places, for instance, empty cans and food leftovers accumulated at company premises during workers’ lunch breaks also contribute the problem.
But maybe topping the list of the litter culprits are those that subscribe to illegal dumping as a viable solution to non-collection of refuse by the responsible authorities. One only needs to move around especially in high-density areas to see what I am talking about. There are mounds of waste everywhere and the fact that the councils haven’t been doing much about it has not made matters any easier. No wonder we have the typhoid scourge staring us in the eye.
Considering the magnitude of the problem, who knows, it is even possible that some people in high offices and in highly esteemed positions are litter bugs.
I have just two questions for litterbugs: Is living in a clean and healthy environment not important to you? Does the typhoid and cholera threat not move you?
It is about time each one of us took the initiative to make the situation better. If not for the environment then let it be for the love for ourselves and our loved ones. Everyone can contribute and do their part; let each one of us start either by recycling reusable products or disposing of garbage in appropriate places.
