MOST African urban areas, including Zambian urban areas, experience the challenge of open and illegal disposal of garbage and waste.
Garbage or waste is any substance or object which the holder discards, intends or is required to discard or throw away.
Scattered, openly and illegally thrown garbage or waste is a common sight in most African urban areas.
It is also common to see a person living on the third floor of an eight-storied building sweeping the waste away in the air just to fall on any of the other floors!
One often sees people openly throwing garbage or waste while they are sitting, standing, walking, eating, on a bicycle or motor-cycle, in a car, bus, truck or train with little consideration of what will happen to that garbage or waste left behind.
For instance, Chiwempala Ward Councillor in Chingola Jacob Pepala in the Times of Zambia of February 4, 2016 observed that ‘The disposal of garbage at the market near the railway line was escalating.
Despite waste bins being put in place, marketeers were still disposing of their garbage near the railway line posing a danger to those residents who live near that place.
Despite the sensitisation made by the councils, people have refused to be paying in order for waste companies to collect garbage on their behalf.
A disease outbreak was looming as the area was not conducive especially during the rainy season.
Residents from near the compound throw garbage at night and during the day which is difficult to control by the council. Chingola was the cleanest town in the country before.’
It makes one to ask the question, ‘What is the root-cause of open disposal of garbage or waste in African urban areas?’ While there are many secondary causes the primary cause is a mind-set and a rural habit.
A mind-set is a fixed state or way of thinking and there are only two types of mindsets: a positive mindset based on love and a negative mind-set based on fear, the opposite of love.
A positive mindset has such positive values as integrity; happiness; responsibility; beauty; cleanliness; consideration of others; fairness; self-confidence; knowledge; forgiveness; and concern while a negative mindset has such negative values as anger; greed and corruption; blame; dirtiness; jealousy; selfishness; doubt; ignorance; hatred; revenge; superstition; and worry.
Urban areas generally tend to be more positive than rural areas.
However, a perfect place of a 100 per cent of either a positive mindset or a negative mindset only exists in Heaven and Hell, respectively.
Therefore, it is only a matter of degree or more of a positive mindset.
Cleanliness, like development, is associated with a positive mindset and Heaven.
A positive mindset leads to positive attitudes and practices which in turn lead to a clean and healthy environment and a clean and healthy environment leads to development and wealth-creation.
On a scale of one to 10, a positive mindset score of more than five is desirable for significant positive results including cleanliness to start to show on the ground.
A habit is an applied mindset and a positive mind-set creates positive habits while a negative mindset creates negative habits.
As such, a change in thinking must always precede or come before any change in the environment.
This is because the garbage or waste on the ground is only the effect or result of a thought in one’s own mind.
In other words, a thought in a person’s mind is the cause of the condition of garbage or waste on the ground while the condition of garbage or waste on the ground is only the effect or result.
When you change the thought inside of a person’s mind you automatically change the environment on the ground and if you want to sustainably clean the environment you must, first, clean the mind of
the people who use that environment.
This strategy goes beyond mere citizen and community sensitisation to include a positive mind-set change education that trains people how to achieve and maintain a clean environment conducive for good health, development and wealth-creation.
This positive mindset change for a clean urban environment involves every citizen and community.
Local Government and Housing Minister Stephen Kampyongo in the Times of Zambia of February 2, 1016 in line with the ‘Keep Zambia Clean and Healthy Campaign’ recognised the need for everyone’s
involvement when he said that ‘The Government is geared to keep Zambia clean to reduce waterborne diseases such as cholera, but this effort requires support from various stakeholders…Efforts to eradicate cholera required the input of all the individuals in all localities.’
In Africa, there are two broad types of waste disposal and management systems, rural and urban.
The rural one involves mostly burning, compositing and recycling.
But it is common to see people in urban areas still using the rural areas’ type of open waste disposal and management system, which seriously endangers urban public health.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines health as ‘State of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’.
Flies, mosquitoes and rats as disease vectors breed and find food in waste dumps and blocked drains.
Rats also damage electrical cables and burning plastics and other waste releases toxic gases into the air.
There is a great need in African urban areas to adopt a new habit of contained and legal waste disposal and management.
Here is why.  In rural areas, the type of waste generated, disposed of and managed is drastically different from that of urban areas as it is more than 90 per cent of bio-degradable materials like banana and cassava peels; millet, maize, sorghum and rice husks; grass and leaves; ash; twigs, animal waste; and similar others most of which is either burned or recycled, especially in the rainy season for manure.
On the other hand, in urban areas the garbage or waste consists of asphalt; asbestos; damaged household appliances; concrete; hazardous clinical waste; metal; oil; plastic; rubber; old clothes and liquid hazardous waste paper.
Other waste include Glass; ceramic; paint; commercial and industrial waste; demolition and construction debris; excavation waste; tailings; hazardous chemicals; electronic or e-waste; and similar dangerous others which cannot be easily burned or recycled for manure.
In addition, African urban areas experience high rates of urbanisation, modernisation and industrialisation which have made the generation of waste beyond the handling capacities of most waste management authorities and put stress on sometimes fragile environment and eco-systems. For instance, the Mayor of Chililabombwe Paul Kabuswe in the Times of Zambia of March 24, 2016 observed that ‘Chililabombwe had put measures in place to make the border area at Kasumbalesa free of diseases like cholera that break out due to lack of cleanliness…
Immediately you remove what was thrown out, within two to three hours you will still find another heap of garbage. Such a situation is costly to the council because garbage collection requires heavy equipment, fuel and personnel…
The cost of garbage collection in Kasumbalesa is quite high’. Lusaka Provincial medical officer Kennedy Malama in the Times of Zambia of April 7, 2016 reported that ‘The number of cholera cases
that have been confirmed in the province since the outbreak in February this year 2016 was 625’.
Cleanliness like charity also begins at home and therefore a mind-set change education is vital to create personal responsibility to put waste only in designated, contained and legal places in order to promote a clean Zambian urban area.
The author is a motivational mentor and consultant in Positive Mindset Change. Email: positivemindpower1511@yahoo.com.