Norton, a small town with 60,000 inhabitants about 40 km west of Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, has no adequate waste management infrastructure. No regular waste separation system has been implemented. Approximately 85% of the households have a regular residual waste collection. The waste is however brought to the dumpsite without any treatment. For many years there was a dumpsite which had neither sealing nor treatment systems for protecting soil, groundwater or the atmosphere, therefore it was harming the environment. Even if the dumpsite was closed last year and a new landfill with basis-sealing started to operate, the latter still wasn’t renaturated. Additionally, methods like waste burial in the backyard, littering and burning of the wastes are widespread. Health issues through emissions and transmission of pathogens are the consequences. However, the majority of the residents are aware of the problem represented by the dumping and littering and concerned about its risks. Furthermore, the unemployment rate in this area was estimated to be 95% in 2009. The idea behind the waste recycling project in Zimbabwe is therefore to help people solve the two issues at once: improving the waste disposal problem by highlighting waste as a resource with monetary value.

Project goals/ideas

The two major objectives of the project are: environmental education and the implementation of a waste separation and distribution system. With a dumpsite or a landfill one important source for recyclables is getting "lost". Therefore, it is necessary to concentrate on a “household waste collection system”.

The education program will sensitise the residents to the principles of waste reduction, reuse and recycling. Later the recyclables could be used to generate additional income through a new commercial section: resources such as scrap, paper, cardboard and plastics can be sold and the organic fraction can be composted. As positive side effects of the project environmental conditions as well as living standards will be improved through cleaner streets and decreasing pollution of the groundwater and air.

Project progress

Engineers Without Borders is in contact with a community-based organisation located in Zimbabwe called NOYACE (Norton Youth Advocacy). NOYACE is working in the field of environmental education and activism such as street clean ups and waste collection. A small waste collection system was already implemented by them. NOYACE’s intent is to create awareness of environmental protection.

A first pre-exploration in Norton Town with the collaboration of NOYACE has been carried out in September 2014. The results of this first pre-exploration, further correspondence, researches and the “Waste Characterisation Report Norton” are:

• Wholesalers to whom the recyclable waste could be sold seem to exist, but the prices are not known in detail. A waste management site which is provided by the public sector could not be identified.
• Basically, people are aware of the problems connected to waste management.
• There are people who live in the disposal sites: they sort out the waste and sell it together with other residents. Groups that collect waste from households could not be identified. However a service that picks up the waste when one has stored a certain amount is present.
• The residential waste profile in Norton was found to be as illustrated in Fig. 1.
• There is a high quantity of rubbish spread all around the town, much of it lies on the side of the streets (Fig. 3), some in informal dumping sites. Surplus rubbish is sometimes burnt in an uncontrolled way.
• Among the population dealing with waste is hardly valued.
• There is a lack of financial means for a waste collection system on the one hand and of incentives for the population to separate the waste on the other.
• It still has to be clarified if the authorities and the City Council would agree with the idea of establishing a public waste service. NOYACE is in contact with them.
• Public authorities provided NOYACE with an "official" storage site. There NOYACE collects recyclables and stores them separately (Fig. 4). However, because of missing containers the recyclables cannot be protected from rain (which is especially a problem for paper and cardboard) and is partially jumbled by the wind.

Further proceeding

The project is still in its initial phase: the exploration is planned for summer 2016. For the moment it is essential to start activities of fundraising and public relations in order to provide a financial base for the further proceeding of the project. The implementation is expected to take place in 2017.

The group is in permanent contact with NOYACE.

Following, the educational and technical part of the project are illustrated.

Technology group

According to the waste management hierarchy, the handling of recyclables follows the principles “reduce”, “reuse”, “recycle”, “utilisation” and finally “disposal”.

The aim of the project is to implement a BUWM (Bottom Up Waste Management). This will provide an interim solution until elementary improvements in waste management are reached. These improvements come under the municipality and cannot be installed by any NGO or CBO.

So far, the project group developed the idea of a waste management system that works as follows:

• Recyclables are collected in carriages and containers and are brought to distribution or recycling centres, ideally by bicycles.
• The recycling centres should be constructed in a simple way. The elementary parts are roofed storages for each waste-fraction, the staff and equipment such as a scale.
• The people who bring recyclables are getting paid according to the weight and waste-fraction.
• The recycling centres sell these resources to wholesale or recycling plants.

Another important task to work on is the implementation of composting or further possibilities to recycle collected waste.

Education group

The aim of the education group is to transmit knowledge and sensitize to:

• Health risks
• Environmental risks
• Different kinds of waste and their characteristics
• The principle of reduction, reuse and recycling

Ideas for workshops which will be conducted with the students in schools will be developed. The workshop will create awareness of the issues of waste reuse, composting and further topics.