Most of the argument about Bulawayo's Richmond Landfill has happened in council chambers, in Parliament and in press statements. It has been about procurement rules, memorandums of understanding and who chose which company. Much less of it has been about the people who actually live on the dump.
Ngozi Mine, as everyone in Bulawayo calls the landfill, is two stories at once. For the suburbs around it, it is a source of smoke that flares up every time the waste catches fire. For the families living on the site, it is a workplace and, for some, the only home they have known for decades. Whatever happens next will change both.
The people who live there
During a site visit organised by the Zimbabwe National Organisation of Associations and Residents Trusts (ZNOART), residents told the Herald they had no objection to Geo Pomona taking over recycling at the site. What they want is to be first in line when the jobs come.
Limukani Sibanda has lived at the landfill since 1994. Waste picking is the only living she has had, and she told the paper that the experience she and her neighbours have in sorting waste should count when the new operator hires. She also raised a longer-running grievance: in 2013, she said, council asked residents to pay a US$50 deposit for residential stands. They were given stand numbers and have renewed them every year, but the stands have never been allocated.
Another resident, Nicholas Mpala, said he welcomed the change, with the same request for priority in employment.
ZNOART national chairperson Shalvar Chikomba said the conditions at the site were very disturbing and that residents should not be dismissed as squatters. His organisation had approached Geo Pomona directly, he said, and the company indicated people living at the landfill would be given first priority when jobs came up. Jobs, though, are only half of it. Chikomba said government and the council also need to find the families decent housing, and questioned why a new stadium was being discussed for Bulawayo while Ngozi Mine residents live as they do.
The people who live next to it
For the neighbouring suburbs, the priority is the air. Cowdray Park resident Simbarashe Nyoni told the Herald his wife now relies on an inhaler, which he blames largely on smoke from the landfill. His family moved to Cowdray Park in 2001.
David Ndebele said affected residents had petitioned the Ministry of Environment, Climate and Wildlife, copying the council and other government agencies, asking for the landfill to be moved and for free testing and treatment for tuberculosis and other respiratory illnesses.
Mayor David Coltart has described the landfill as a festering sore. When fires break out, he said in remarks reported by CITE, they release toxic gases, particularly in Cowdray Park. When the presidential directive to fix it was announced, residents of Cowdray Park, Emakhandeni and Luveve described struggling to breathe during the worst episodes, with some families sending relatives with respiratory conditions to stay in other suburbs, according to reporting carried by Zimbabwe Situation.
Why waste pickers keep getting left out
Informal waste pickers are the first link in most of Zimbabwe's recycling. They pull plastic, cardboard and metal out of mixed waste that would otherwise just be buried or burned, and sell it on to buy-back centres and recyclers. That is exactly the work a modern processing plant does, which is why modernisation so often threatens their income rather than building on it.
Bulawayo's residents' groups seem aware of the risk. When eleven civic organisations rejected the government's one-week deadline for a Geo Pomona deal, they asked that local waste operators and informal recyclers working at Ngozi Mine be considered in any future arrangement, CITE reports. A stakeholders' meeting hosted by the Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association went further, saying existing waste pickers "should not simply be pushed out" but integrated into the future recycling and waste management system.
So far, the official directive, as reported, has focused on replicating the Harare model and ending the pollution. It has said little in public about the people working on the site.
What a fair transition could look like
The residents are not asking for much that is unusual. Priority hiring, recognition of the sorting skills they already have, and housing that was promised more than a decade ago are all things a new operator and the council could put in writing.
The draft memorandum of understanding that council has asked its management to obtain from Geo Pomona is the natural place to do that. If it includes commitments on employing current pickers, on who buys the recyclables they collect in the meantime, and on relocation to serviced stands, Ngozi Mine could become a genuine example of cleaning up a dump without pushing its poorest users further out. If it does not, the likely outcome is the one seen at dumpsites across the region: a fenced site, a cleaner skyline, and the people who used to work there looking for a new place to pick.
What happens next
Coltart has said it is critical that residents see the draft MOU and are able to comment on it. For the families on the site, the clauses to look for are simple: who gets hired, what happens to informal recycling, and where people will live. For Cowdray Park, it is whether emergency fire control starts now or waits for a contract.
Sources
- Waste revolution puts focus on Ngozi Mine livelihoods, Zimbabwe Situation / The Herald
- President orders urgent end to Ngozi Mine crisis, Zimbabwe Situation
- MP challenges Geo Pomona deal for Bulawayo waste management, CITE
- Bulawayo residents reject government directive on Geo Pomona deal, CITE
- Council unable to fund Ngozi Mine waste plant, Coltart says, CITE
Written by Rufaro
Plain-language guides to getting rid of anything in Zimbabwe, properly.
