Two communities in rural Zimbabwe will benefit from sustainable waste management projects aimed at promoting human, animal and environmental health, through production of renewable energy and recycling the escalating waste in the communities into valuable commodities that can be sold for income or used in the homesteads. The projects will alleviate environmental pollution and human and animal health risks by addressing improper solid waste disposal practices which have resulted in illegal dumps, litter, and pollution, endangering animals, the environment and public health.
St. Luke’s Hospital, Lupane
Located more than 600km from the capital Harare, Lupane is a vibrant growing town centre. The community is served by a Catholic church-founded medical facility, St. Luke’s Hospital, which also serves as a referral centre for communities within as far as a 300km radius. A town center has inevitably grown along the peripherals of the hospital, to serve the ever-growing hospital population.
The project team, mentors, hospital staff and community members during a site visit to St, Luke's hospital, Lupane (photo credit: ILRI/ Pamela Wairagala)
The community is bedeviled by poor service provision, common in rural areas manifested through poor road networks, absent ambulance services as well as limited health facilities. To improve maternal health outcomes, the St. Luke’s hospital provides boarding facilities for expectant mothers, known as ‘waiting mothers’, who either come from far, are vulnerable or in poor health and would ordinarily find it difficult to quickly access the hospital when the time for delivery comes. The hospital caters for anywhere between 80-200 waiting mothers, who cater for their basic needs, including meals, prepared using firewood from a nearby forest reserve for their cooking fuel. Not only is the smoke from the firewood a danger to the already vulnerable mothers, but collecting the firewood exposes them to risks of attack by wild animals. The increasing number of waiting mothers, exerts increased pressure on the forest resources.
Guruve district – Chifamba high school
Located 152 kilometers from Harare to the north is Guruve, a rural district in Mashonaland central province with a population of approximately 153,000 people and 37,206 households. Guruve is Zimbabwe’s largest producer of tobacco, supported by other economic activities such as retailing, construction, manufacturing, and mining. Guruve village, located within the district is home to a sprawling business community, with a transit bus route to the rest of northern Zimbabwe. The busy transit route, like elsewhere, has come with challenges, including an accumulation of waste. At Chifamba high school, located within Guruve village, a low-cost boarding chalet has been erected by a group of parents, to accommodate girls from financially constrained families and provide them an opportunity to benefit from attending boarding school. Mothers take turns staying in the boarding chalet, watching the wellbeing of their daughters. The girls’ meals, provided by the school, are prepared using firewood that the school buys from local suppliers.
In both Lupane and Guruvu, poor waste management and accumulation around the growth points, present a threat to human, animal, and environmental exposure to dangerous inorganic and organic waste like plastic, glass, scrap metal and rubber, food, plant and animal waste. Poor disposal of this waste exposes community members and animals to vector-borne and zoonotic diseases. To address the rising waste problem, community members often collect and burn the plastics, unfortunately, this only increases the danger of greenhouse gas emissions and exposes the locals to deadly fumes from the burning plastic.
The project team and mentors during a visit to the proposed site at Chifamba High school (photo credit: ILRI/ Pamela Wairagala)
Plastic waste is arguably one of the most urgent and fast-growing challenges for most urban establishments. The United Nations Environment Programme reports that since the 1970s, the rate of plastic production has grown faster than that of any other material. If historic growth trends continue, global production of primary plastic is forecasted to reach 1,100 million tonnes by 2050. Approximately 36 per cent of all plastics produced are used in packaging, including single-use plastic products for food and beverage containers, approximately 85 per cent of which end up in landfills or as unregulated waste. This contributes to the increasing problem of greenhouse gas emissions, affecting both the environment, animal and human health. In 2019, plastics generated 1.8 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions- 3.3% of the world’s total, according to a United Nations Environment Programme report. According to the Zimbabwe Environmental Management Authority, Zimbabwe generates 300,000 tonnes of plastic waste every year and a significant portion of it is dumped into the streets or open areas
Rapid urbanization, furious marketing campaigns and the ever-growing trend to consume mainly packed beverages and foods, has not spared the peri-urban and in some cases rural communities from the increasing use of plastic materials, and the resultant waste.
One Health response
The interventions in Zimbabwe are two of eight projects funded by the Capacitating One Health in Eastern and Southern Africa (COHESA) project following a call for proposals to address local challenges using a One Health approach. In Zimbabwe, two proposals, one by the Lupane State University (LSU) and the second by a partnership between Harare Institute of Technology (HIT) and Chinhoyi University of Technology (CUT) were selected for funding and mentorship. Other beneficiary countries include Kenya, Ethiopia and Botswana.
The projects in Zimbabwe will entail construction of biodigester plants at the St. Luke’s hospital in Lupane to serve a 300-capacity ward for waiting mothers and a low cost boarding chalet at Chifamba high school in Guruve aimed at turning both inorganic and organic waste into resources through capacity building and awareness creation. Community members will be trained to reduce overreliance on forest and timber products for energy by substituting with energy from organic waste and women and youth will be trained on recycling inorganic waste into useful commodities that can be sold or utilized. Waste recovery centers will be established and organic waste processed using biogas technologies into renewable energy for cooking and lighting at both the hospital and the high school. The biogas digesters at the two sites will use plastic and other solid waste collected from around the communities to provide biogas fuel and other products such as paraffin and polish.
In October 2024, the project steering committee, comprising of mentors and COHESA country-team members, implementing teams from LSU, HTI and CUT as well as the project beneficiaries, visited the proposed project sites at St. Luke’s hospital and at Chifamba high school. The visits were intended to give the team first hand understanding of the sites, provide an opportunity for guidance and mentoring on implementation and engage project beneficiaries. The projects will be implemented within one year.
Bright Chisadza, the co-principal investigator for the Lupane State University- St, Luke’s hospital project said,
‘This project will enable us to apply a holist One Health approach to address poor waste management in the community, human- wildlife conflict arising from communities regularly going into the forest to collect firewood and also reduce the human pressure on the environment, through tree cutting for firewood’.
Kudakwashe Chitindigu, the Principal Investigator for the HTI- CUT led project said,
‘The waste management practices in the Guruve community, require innovation in order to benefit from solid waste. The Guruve community should see value in all types of waste and as a result, the ‘turning waste to resources’, TW2R project will promote a cleaner environment for both humans and animals ’.
Community involvement- turning waste to resources
Roger Dube, centre with hat, with some of the 'community waste champions' and project mentors during the inception visit to the project site in Lupane school (photo credit: ILRI/ Pamela Wairagala)
Community members appreciate the impact that poor waste disposal has had on their communities including loss of livestock after they consumed plastics and are excited to be part of the project. Sixty-five-year-old Roger Dube is part of a group of people, mainly women and youth, referred to as ‘community waste champions’, who work with the local Environment Management Authority to collect garbage around the communities. Dube’s motivation for joining the project is restoring the lost beauty of Lupane. He has been collecting and burning plastic waste within the community. The group will work on the project as plastic waste collectors in exchange for by-products from the biogas plant, such as paraffin and polish that they will sell for an income.
Ngwanti Kezias, Engineer General shows a truck that he made from recycled plastic waste during a visit to his workshop by the project team (photo credit: ILRI/ Pamela Wairagala)
In Guruve, sixty-seven-year-old Ngwarati Kezias, also known as Engineer General, who holds a Certificate in Recycling as a Business, has for the last 22 years been recycling plastics into artifacts like children’s toys and home decorative accessories, using rudimentary tools. The project will explore the possibility of setting up a well-equipped workshop within the community where Ngwarati will work with and train women and youth to recycle plastic waste into products that can be sold.
Even before the projects kick off, the excitement within the communities is palpable.
Kaiche Benjamin, the Headteacher at the Chifamba High school looks forward to having the biodigester constructed at the school.
“…with savings from money previously spent on firewood, we will purchase stuff like stationery”.
The school currently has 1000 students, 200 of whom use the boarding facility.
Project team and community members at the site of a decommissioned biogas site St. Luke’s hospital. The project will construct a new biogas plant to supply a newly constructed ‘waiting mothers’ ward (photo credit: ILRI/ Pamela Wairagala)
Geraldine Jongwe, the administrator at St. Luke’s hospital said,
‘Our biogas system broke down and the waiting mothers have been using firewood which is not safe for them; we are excited that they will now be able to access clean energy again’.
A community engagement strategy will be developed to guide engagement between the project and the communities. Areas to consider will include capacity building, managing interference of the project sites by community members, promoting ownership and project management by community members.