Make a difference at a local level . . . help reduce the growing litter problem in Zimbabwe and make a bit of money at the same time!

Plastix Incorporated is a plastic manufacturing company that does recycling and manufacturing of finished products. They are based at 72 Lytton Road, Workington in Harare. Plastix was formed in 2009.

The advantages of recycling plastic in Zimbabwe
Using waste plastic that is collected in Zimbabwe means do not have to import recycled plastic from South Africa as raw material. So it means we have stopped the dumping of yet another product. Basically when you are importing recycled plastic from South Africa, you are importing another nation’s trash. But you have done nothing about your own trash.

Getting practical
A lot of things can be done. We have so many things that need attention in our communities. So per street as women what can you do? You have so many plastic things in the home – put them in one bag. Then every week, or at the end of every month, the hundred houses in your street put the bags on the corner. We come and pick the bags up and we pay money to that street. Are you not then able to patch potholes properly?

Tell us more
There is a home for this plastic! That home is Plastix, where we buy used plastic and recycle that plastic to make bin liners. Let’s take schools as one example. We have heard complaints like ‘We don’t have books, children are sharing books’. If mothers start talking to their children at home, telling the children that if they put every little empty packet of maputi in a recycle bin rather than just throw it on the ground then they will be fundraising for their school. Each child by the end of the year, if you give it a time frame for a year, that school would have raised funds to buy books for the children. Or they can fix those windowpanes that they were waiting for the government to do. Who is the government? The government is us! We have not thought about who is the government. We are the government. Mary is the government. Mary is the City Council. Why are we complaining? We need to change our frame of mind.

Action: Contact Mary at Plastix and work with her to recycle waste plastic products.
Email: sales [at] plastixinc [dot] net
Cell: (+263) 0772 399 453 / 0773 226 611 / 0712 667 888

Alternatively, take your waste plastic to the Zimbabwe Sunshine Project, 6 Borrowdale Lane, so that they can earn money from your rubbish to support their vocational training programmes for disabled young adults.

It is so easy for one to throw litter on the streets without caring about who then picks it up. Some of this litter finds its way into the city’s water sources, which in turn means that the City Council has to fork out millions to purify the water. Failure to do so then means residents will receive a short supply of this precious resource. The possibility of it being contaminated and dirty cannot be ruled out.

Tisunungureiwo Cooperative is a community-based organisation that recycles waste material. The cooperative collects the rubbish from unemployed people who move around the city of Harare.

It is the Cooperative’s dream to build solid infrastructure at their complex and also be able to do the recycling themselves. For example, melting plastic bottles or grinding metal objects. They also wish to have a supply of electricity and water, both of which they currently don’t have. Some members of the group have received training in waste management but they also wish to further their knowledge and the skills of all their members.

These photographs show the work of Tisunungureiwo Cooperative. This is a way they earn their living by being responsible citizens.