Uncollected garbage, burst sewer pipes, pools of raw sewage (you name it all) are unsightly and poss a serious healthy hazard.

I strongly disagree with the suggestion that we should burn the garbage, burning the garbage and litter will cause more environmental damage. Truth be told most of the stuff that we throw away can be:

1. recycled and re-used – think of plastic bags, bottles, paper … that we throw in the bin and drop on the streets

2. turned into compost and used as manure in your back yard garden

moving forward I challenge each and everyone to start sorting their garbage into:

1. rubbish – non composting (which should be recycled or properly disposed)

2. compost- use this in your garden or sell

The rubbish can then be sorted again into recyclable and non recyclable and where ever possible lets recycle and re-use the recyclables.

Food for thought (or thought for food -which ever comes first) before plastic bags were “banned” and been sold, how many plastic bags did you use to grab on your shopping trip (even for a single item) and what did you do with the bags afterward????.

where are those plastic bags right now? how long will they take to disintegrate in our rivers, wetlands, compost heaps, streets…..?

The local authorities should also play their role in service delivery, they also face a big challenge their dump sites are quickly filling up and once they resume normal service delivery they might not have anywhere to dump the rubbish.

We should start to look and explore sustainable and environmentalyy friendly ways on disposing our garbage.

Take for instance, when the dump site just after the national sports stadium caught fire, it took the authorities time to put out the fire which was polluting the environment and posed a threat to human life for people living in Warren park, Eastlea and the surrounding areas.

If we should look east, let us look east and learn how they are taking care of their garbage. I am sure there is a thing or two that we can learn from our brothers and sisters in the east.

This issue goes beyond uncollected garbage, our street poles, durawalls, buildings are an eye sore as a result of promotional material that is posted they (some of it dates back as long as the 2008 violent election, including thank you messages for voting for him in peace)

Our water sources are polluted with raw sewage and sledge from the work works, our wet lands are drying up and been used for “urban farming”, raw sewage flows in our streets, street lights are non exists. As rate payers and custodians for the environment for future generations its time that we demand some decent service delivery from the local authorities in return for our hard earned money.

my 2 cents