With the way things have been going since beginning of year, it would seem the BIN-it Zimbabwe initiative might just be the answer to the litter problem that has turned the country, especially its capital city, into one major dump!
Chipo Masara
The initiative was started by Proudly Zimbabwean Foundation (PZF), a local non-governmental organisation.
Litter has been a thorn in the flesh for the responsible authorities as they have, over the past few years, come under fire from the public for failing to contain the problem.
Garbage has been accumulating in the country over a fairly long period because refuse collection has been erratic at best.
It is only when there was a cholera, typhoid or dysentery outbreak that the authorities were prompted to act, often going back to their laid-back approach as soon as the outbreaks had been contained.
Since 2008, cholera and typhoid have been a recurring problem in the country.
This might be partly why some people would like to believe the current Harare mayor Muchadeyi Masunda’s administration has been the worst so far.
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In Harare, the local authority, under which the waste management task falls, finally saw it best to publicly admit that containing all the litter had become too overwhelming a task for it to handle on its own, due to “lack of funds”.
It was then that different stakeholders, determined to see the city cleaned up and restored to its former glory, came out and declared their willingness to offer a helping hand to the overburdened council.
One name that comes to my mind when I recall the initial anti-littering campaigning is Miracle Missions.
Working hand in glove with the Harare City Council (HCC), the organisation organised countless clean-up exercises in and around the city. This, more than anything, helped raise awareness on the dirty state the city was in.
I believe people that witnessed the clean-up efforts or read all the anti-littering banners that were incorporated into the campaign, were made aware of the fact that by littering, they worsened the problem.
The anti-littering campaign by Miracle Missions also engaged the corporate world, who they believed could play a major role in the litter war. This was after observing that business ventures by most companies only served to worsen the litter problem.
