Econet Wireless Zimbabwe’s Clean City Private Limited today stepped up cleanliness awareness efforts with the launch of Community Environmental Services (CES).
The launch event saw over 200 Community Environmental Services (CES) volunteers drawn from the community converging at Mt Pleasant Hall, before proceeding to lead an awareness and cleaning blitz at Mt Pleasant Shopping Centre and its environs.
Speaking on the sidelines of the launch event, CEO Clean City Mr Lovemore Nyatsine challenged the communities to embrace a cleanliness culture through awareness, ownership and action.
“Waste management has become a major public health and environmental concern in our communities and this calls for all of us to partner with municipalities and local authorities in their efforts to make our suburbs cleaner. The idea behind the launch of Community Environmental Services (CES) is to inculcate within our communities a culture of cleanliness. Our ultimate goal as Clean City working with all stakeholders is zero tolerance to litter and to make sure that our society lives in healthier environments. This can only be attained through sustainable behavioral change towards proper waste disposal and management,” said Mr Nyatsine.
The launch of Community Environmental Services comes at a time when Clean City is already working towards transforming Budiriro suburb into a clean zone models following the construction of a Material Recovery Centre (MRC) earlier this year. MRC is a structure built to receive, sort, process and store recyclable materials which will then be shipped to end-users.
The MRC has already seen more than 5 000 households in Glen View and Budiriro who are now practicing waste source separation at the household level.A weekly Clean City waste bin collection schedule has also been established in the area with over 10,000 households receiving bin liners. This is in addition to 7 drainages that have been cleaned in Budiriro with more than 20 illegal dumps successfully decommissioned translating to over 50 tons of waste taken to Pomona from the dumps.
Speaking at the launch event, Mr Munawa General Manager for Clean City said, “The launch of Community Environmental Services today forms part of our endeavors to engage communities about the importance of proper waste management. We are excited to launchCommunity Environmental Services here today. Community Environmental Services Volunteers will be mandated with, among other duties, to promote environmental awareness and discourage littering activities by the public.”
Econet has in the recent past led the way in cleaning suburbs, including Arise ‘n’ Shine clean-up campaign in Budiriro and Glen View following last year’s outbreak of cholera, which has since been contained. This is in addition the extensive clean-up done in Chimanimani working with almost a 1000 volunteers.
Mr Munawa thanked City of Harare as the major partner and other partner organisations for facilitating the processes that ensured that Community Environmental Services, MRC in Budiriro and other Clean City initiatives come to fruition. “It is in our plans that Community Environmental Services will be replicated not only in Harare but across Zimbabwe.Together we can restore the glamour of our cities and towns, and live healthier,” said Mr Munawa.
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