MEDICA Trade Fair Germany 2018 – Venue for Medical Equipment Ad Messe Düsseldorf Learn more The Harare City Council has failed to cope with a rise in the number of people moving from rural areas into the city in search of a better life.
And also garbage collection.
“Increase in population has not been matched by a corresponding enhancement in the necessary infrastructure and services and has been a major challenge to Zimbabwean urban local authorities,” said Environment Minister Oppah Muchinguri Kashiri.
“Consequently, there has been an increase in urban solid waste generation not matched with sound waste management systems posing environmental and health hazards particularly to the urban population of Zimbabwe,” she said, in the Solid Waste Management Plan of 2014.
In 2014, a multi-ministerial Cabinet Committee on water pollution found the Harare City Council guilty of daily discharging 3 885 mega litres, or 19,43 million drums, of raw sewage into water systems around the capital city.
The smart city way This is the problem that faces the capital city, a complex and vicious cycle, a garbage and health problem, an ecocological nightmare shared by other cities and towns across Zimbabwe, a country where rural to urban migration has soared to 38,1 percent in 2010, from 10,6 percent 60 years ago.
As far as climate change impacts are concerned, it is important for Zimbabwean cities to increase resilience by facilitating and mainstreaming adaptation and disaster risk reduction measures in planning and development.
Cities contribute significantly to the production of greenhouse gases, the biggest cause of climate change.
Tarek Ibrahim, the MAFGAIB founder and president, believes his company has the sort of technology – plasma gasification – to help Zimbabwe’s garbage problem look something like electricity and bio-diesel, have it altogether disappear.
Ibrahim’s waste energy is self-powered.