By STEVEN ZANDE

Zema

THE Integrated Community and Anti-Litter Initiative (ICALI) has commended the Zambia Environment Management Agency (ZEMA) for suspending waste material recycling at Chunga dumpsite, and has called on authorities to shut the site.
ZEMA, working with the Lusaka City Council (LCC), on Monday suspended the recycling of waste materials at Lusaka’s Chunga dumpsite as part of efforts to halt the spread of cholera.
ICALI chairperson Pascal Chikumbi said the Chunga dumpsite was full and suspending scavenging should enable ZEMA find an alternative site far from residential communities, and that this would help create a formalised waste recycling sector.
“We now need a consolidated approach that will identify measures to ensure we put in place sustainable waste recycling,” Mr Chikumbi said.
He said this in an interview in yesterday.
Mr Chikumbi said sustainable waste recycling should take into account the well-being of communities while generating a predictable revenue stream for the Government.
He said scavenging had been a source of concern to stakeholders because the people involved in the trade carried the contamination into communities.
Mr Chikumbi said the situation had been exacerbated by the fact that people had built residential properties around the dumping site, and this was hazardous considering that the Chunga site was full.
This called for creation of a new dumpsite where there would be an established system of separating waste in categories to ease the process of recycling.
Mr Chikumbi said the Government should implement policies that facilitated sustainable garbage collection and separation of waste material as this would help feed the needs of different recycling plants.
He said ICALI would continue advocating against indiscriminate garbage disposal considering the huge cost of managing effects of garbage on the environment and on public health.