Manja Pamodzi, the SABMiller Zambia recycling initiative, saw its latest cleaning offensive get off the ground in Mutendere this weekend, as part of a campaign to banish packaging waste from Lusaka’s streets.
Business activities in the area came to a near-standstill while shops and other service delivery points were closed during the clean-up operation. Residents who joined in the exercise cleared blocked gutters, swept up any mess, and picked up litter in the residential area, with some 100 participants collecting 3,754kg of waste during the day.
Newly-elected Munali Member of Parliament Professor Nkandu Luo together with France’s Ambassador to Zambia Emmanuel Cohet, and SABMiller staff members joined scores of enthusiastic residents who turned up to participate in the blitz-clean.
Speaking at the event, SABMiller Zambia marketing director Thomas Kamphuis said: “As a Zambian business that came up with a Zambian solution to a Zambian problem, we’re thrilled with the steady progress our Manja Pamodzi campaign is making. Its success so far is a clear vote of confidence from our communities, who have chosen to trust us by partnering with us in our quest for a cleaner environment with a thriving population. We are immeasurably grateful for this trust.”
He added that Manja Pamodzi is about more than just creating enterprise opportunities: “We are about giving people a sense of worth, a spirit of hope, a future to look forward to and a chance to take back ownership of their and our communities, through life skills and technical skill development.”
Elaine Kafwimbi, Manja Pamodzi project manager, said: “The project, supported by Millennium Challenge Account Zambia, German development organisation GIZ and the French Embassy in Zambia, is designed to empower people in local communities by adding value and sustainability within the already existing recycling structures.”
In just the last year since Manja Pamodzi was launched in August 2015, the project has collected, sorted and recycled 225.4 tonnes of waste: 168.9 tonnes of cartons, 35.36 tonnes of clear PET plastic bottles, 15.19 tonnes of brown PET plastic bottles, and 5.91 tonnes of HDPE plastic containers, with collectors generating K40,425 of income.
The collectors are identified through environmental education and sensitisation drives with a bias towards recycling. The collectors gather polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, cardboards and other recyclable materials from target areas in their communities. Aggregators thereafter buy the material in bulk and process the discarded material into bundles that are then sold to recycling companies to be processed into useable material such as tissues and egg trays.
this has to be extended to the whole city and other towns. we can do it. Lets not wait for GRZ to do everything. By the way we are GRZ ourselves.
Please let’s us extend this to all townships, mayor of Lusaka take it up. Put up a program which will be mandatory at least once every fortnight residents to clean up their surroundings, people will be responsible. Very good initiative our cities are very dirty.
Its a good move but can’t stand a test of time just like the amended constitution because people don’t have dustbins & garbage collectors. These two issues need to be resolved first otherwise people will go back to throwing in drainage because they don’t have dustbins to keep garbage in their premises for longer than 24 hours & transport to take their waste to the dumping site which is almost 30 km from Mtendere just like all residents of Lusaka & the rest of the country. Of course, there are few companies collecting garbage but the cost even if reasonable, it is un affordable for most people. Otherwise the remedy is to make it compulsory for every one to subscribe to garbage collection in order to bring the cost down due to better economies of scale.
Wonderful! After all how does that mess get to the streets in the first place? The locals themselves. Maybe there’s not enough money to have gov’t sweepers in all areas, but we CAN pick up our rubbish put it into local piles for collection. How about paying youths weekend pocket money, film tickets, free soft drinks in an initiative all businesses join in! Prof. Luo leading the way in local imitative again. I hope she gets an impressive post this time.
Zambia should copy the ‘Salongo’ campaign in Zaire during the early Mobutu times. The campaign meant that every Saturday, all businesses remained closed until about 11 hours to allow for a total clean up by all residents in the town. The campaign was strictly informed by the local political office and driven by the party officials. But of course being in the Zambian discourse now, proper modalities and structures need to be set up so that people do not hijack the program and start swindling business houses for fake donations. I know Prof. Luo will do good for her constituency but we need a national campaign or else Zambia will continue turning into a huge dustbin or rubbing dump.
Sorry;
The campaign was strictly enforced by the local political….
Waiting for negative comments from UPND